
tories of the 
chool room 

^Bardeen 
Geraldine’s Saints 


















These books are at the head of the Miscellaneous 
list in the “Annotated, graded, classified and priced 
list of books suitable for elementary school libraries’' 
issued by the Education department of the State of 
New York, Feb. 15, 1912. 

( From the Bibliography of Education for 1894 , James 1. 

Wyer, Jr., notv New York slate librarian, in Edu- 
cational Review, June, 1905) 

“Fiction has never before been given place in this 
bibliography, but these stories are so manifestly the 
product of a rich experience and so full of sound 
sense, their abundant and obtrusive ‘morals’ are so 
salutary and their portrayal of certain educational 
shams and evils so vivid, that they certainly deserve 
serious reading by teachers and trustees. ” 

{From the New York Sun) 

“The author has the gift of narration.” 

( From the Brooklyn Eagle, June l, 1912) 

“What Du Maurier did for the intimate life of 
the artist, Boucicault for the Irish rebel. Kipling 
for the British soldier, and Conally for the Glouces- 
ter fisherman, Bardeen is doing for the every-day 
life of the school.” 

( From the Pedagogical Seminary, G. Stanley Hall, Editor) 
“Mr. Bardeen is the story writer of American ed- 
ucation. He has already written three books of sto- 
ries of New York Schools, and here prints six short 
ones. To our mind this is by far his best book. 
His style is utterly unpretentious and sometimes 
homely, but there is a sense of reality about the in- 
cidents he portrays, and his writings embody the re- 
sults of so much keen observation of the character 
and psychic processes of teachers and everything is 
described as so real that the stories are most impres- 
sive. At the crisis when Paul Pembroke’s fortunes 
are changed for the better, when he protests before a 
large commencement audience against a fraudulent 
diploma, the victory of Sears over the Alpha Upsilon 
Society, and the triumph of Miss Trumbull are pro- 
foundly moving. In the story of the haunted 
school-room we have almost a contribution to hys- 
tero-neurosis, while in Miss Fothergill’s protest we 
have a character of a pushing but unscrupulous girl 
which we fear is too true to life.” 


GERALDINE’S SAINTS 

AND OTHER 

STORIES ABOUT SCHOOLS 


BY 

C. W. BARDEEN 

\\ 

Editor of the School Bulletin 



SYRACUSE, N. Y. 

C. W. BARDEEN. PUBLISHER 


Copyright, 1915, by C. W. Bardeen 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

Roderick Hume, the story of a New York Teach- 
er. With 26 full-page illustrations by L. A. Shrimp- 
ton. Cloth, 16:295, $1.25. 

Commissioner Hume, aStoryof New YorkSchools. 
Cloth, 16:210, $1.25. 

Fifty -five Years Old, and other Stories about 
Teachers. Cloth, 16:216, $1.00. 

The Woman Teacher and other Stories about 
Schools. Cloth, 16 mo, pp. 259, $1.00. 

The False Entry, and other Stories about Schools. 
Cloth, 16 mo, pp. 244, $1.00. 

The Cloak Room Thief, and other Stories about 
Schools. Cloth, 16 mo, pp. 226, $1.00. 

John Brody’s Astral Body, and other Stories 
about Schools. Cloth, 16 mo, pp. 195, $1.00. 

Tom and Tom Tit, and other Stories about Teach- 
ers. Cloth, 16 mo, pp. 286, $1.00. 

The Yellow Streak, and other Stories about 
Schools. Cloth, 16mo, pp. 255, $1.00. 

The Trial Balance, and other Stories about 
Schools. Cloth, 16 mo, pp. 229, $1.00. 

The Girl from Girton, and other Stories about 
Schools. Cloth, 16mo, pp. 235. 

The Black Hand, and other Stories about Schools. 
Cloth, 16mo, pp. 184, $1.00. 

Fifty Fables about Teachers. Cloth, 16 mo, pp. 
164, $1.00. 

The Little Old Man, or> the School for Illiberal 
Mothers. With illustrations. Cloth, 16:31, 50 cts. 

Authors Birthdays. Three Series. Illustrations. 
Cloth, 16:320, 459, 367. Each $1.00. 

Dictionary of Educational Biography. With 400 
portraits. Cloth, 12:287, $2.00. 

Teaching as a Business. Cloth, 16:154, $1.00. 

(4) 

$ 40 ° 

AUG -9 1915 

©CU411009 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Geraldine’s saints 9 

Around the world 55 

The Greenleaf mystery Ill 

The president exaggerated 145 

A hot-house flower 165 

The stolen regents paper 195 


( 5 ) 



Geraldine’s saints 


GERALDINE’S SAINTS 


I 

“So this is Miss Upton.” 

“And you are Mr. Everett. You can’t 
imagine how I have dreaded meeting you.” 

“Am I so terrible?” 

“Not terrible but loaded with such a 
responsibility.” 

“For what?” 

“To live up to your reputation.” 

“Who has been slandering me?” 

“Clementine Anthony says every day I 
am associated with you ought to be a red- 
letter day.” 

“Where did you know Clementine An- 
thony?” 

“We spent a fortnight at the same hotel 
( 9 ) 


10 


Geraldine’s saints 


in Florence last month, and came home 
on the same steamer.” 

“Isn’t she a dear? Of all my pupils 
she has been the greatest delight to me. 
I always bubble over with her, like a school- 
boy. She gives me a sense of exhilaration, 
so that I laugh, laugh out loud, at what 
with anybody else I should only smile.” 

“You cannot possibly be all she thinks 
you are, so I am prepared to be disillus- 
ioned.” 

“I am so unfortunate in your tenses. 
The Pryors told me I should find you the 
most charming woman I ever met and I 
was prepared to be disappointed, but I see 
the half has not been told.” 

“And Clementine dwelt especially on 
your truthfulness; how are the mighty 
falling. But where did you know the 
Pryors?” 


Geraldine’s saints 


11 


“Crossed the continent with them first 
and have visited them every year since. 
They are always referring to the summer 
you spent with them at Bar Harbor.” 

“I would have gone again this year if the 
chance had not come to visit Italy. Which 
of the two do you like better?” 

“Neither. It is the only family I know 
where that is true. Usually you like the 
wife and endure the husband or like the 
husband and endure the wife, but really 
with the Pryors I cannot tell which I enjoy 
most, and whichever I am with it is a 
pleasure to have the other come in. How 
seldom one can say that.” 

“Yes, indeed. But they are the only 
couple I know where each would rather 
the other would do the talking.” 

“Except on one point. When they are 
praising you they interrupt each other.” 


12 


Geraldine’s saints 


“What good friends we ought to be. 
And yet I can’t help remembering that 
the friends of mutual friends are seldom 
good friends themselves.” 

“That is true. Let us be the exceptions 
that prove the rule.” 

II 

They did not prove exceptions: they il- 
lustrated the rule. Prepared to be con- 
genial they somehow did not get on. They 
admired each other intellectually but they 
did not enjoy each other’s company. They 
kept up the forms of intimate friends, but 
when they could do so unnoticed they 
avoided each other. They were like two 
dancers who are both excellent waltzers but 
both accustomed to lead. 

To Mr. Everett it was more than a 
matter of personal intercourse. He had 
expected in a week or two to get hold of 


Geraldine’s saints 


13 


this new school, as he had got hold of his 
other schools, but it had held aloof from 
him. He controlled it but he had to con- 
trol it, while heretofore his schools had run 
themselves. His pupils accepted him 
rather than welcomed him. He got their 
attention only perfunctorily, with none of 
the eagerness he was accustomed to. 

He was slow to discover the reason, but 
eventually he saw it was because Miss 
Upton was absorbing the admiration and 
the fealty that had hitherto come to him. 
He did not wonder at it. She was a charm- 
ing woman, happy in disposition, greeting 
the world with a smile possible only to 
those who have not been frowned upon. 
The girls hung about her, the boys adored 
her, parents delighted to meet her. 

For all this he was glad. There was no 
jealousy in his nature; he gloried in the 


14 


Geraldine’s saints 


success and the popularity of his teachers. 
But there was something more here. Ger- 
aldine Upton had always been preceptress 
under weak principals, and had grown so 
accustomed to hold the reins in school that 
when she and Mr. Everett came to Spruce- 
haven together she assumed them as 
naturally as though it were not usually 
the custom for the man to drive. Mr. 
Everett had been amused to see her dictate 
the course of study, the arrangement of 
classes, the assignment of new pupils. 
She had shown good judgment, and he had 
no desire to poke a fire that was already 
blazing merrily. He did not care to assert 
his authority as authority. So long as 
everything moved aright it was immaterial 
who assumed responsibility or got the 
credit. 

But it became embarrassing when parents 


Geraldine's saints 


15 


consulted her instead of him about the 
children, and when members of the board 
sought their information from her about 
the school. He found himself looked upon 
as a figure-head, while she was skipper of 
the craft. 

It was not that she meant to presume. 
Every hair of her head was loyal. She 
was helping him in the way she had helped 
the poor little weaklings with whom she 
had heretofore been associated, without a 
thought that he did not need the help they 
had needed. In fact he learned from little 
hints that she considered herself his guar- 
dian; she was exercising over him the 
motherly instincts inherent in all good 
women. 

As the consciousness of the situation 
developed he was half amused, half ap- 
prehensive, wholly puzzled. Evidently she 


16 


Geraldine’s saints 


looked down upon him, thinking herself 
much fitter than he to manage the school 
and making other people think so. Should 
he protest? If so, how? He could not 
go to her and say, “I am a good deal more 
of a man and a principal than you think 
me.” He must be patient and wait. 
While the ship was sailing smoothly her 
little hand could hold the rudder. Storms 
might arise when a stronger arm was need- 
ed. He would not interfere till the neces- 
sity was apparent. 

Ill 

‘‘Mr. Everett,” she asked him one day, 
‘‘what are two Greek words beginning with 
Gamma and Sigma?” 

“TvwOl creavTov,” he replied. 

‘‘And they mean?” 

“Know thyself.” 

“Capital: they are just what we want.” 


Geraldine’s saints 


17 


“For what?” 

“Our new sorority.” 

“In the school?” 

“Yes, our nine best girls.” 

“Are you sure the board will permit such 
an organization?” 

“I asked Mr. Polley, and he said the 
board would not interfere.” 

“Mr. Polley is a new member. In look- 
ing over the records I saw that three or 
four years ago the board took action, ex- 
pressing disapproval of secret societies 
among the pupils.” 

“Did they make a regulation against it?” 

“No, the matter did not come to an 
issue.” 

“Then I am sure they won’t object. In 
fact the society is already formed.” 

“Who are the members?” 

“Bona Wheelock and Charlotte Hough- 


18 


Geraldine’s saints 


ton and Evangeline Webster were the first 
three I spoke to about it. They three 
picked Faustina Thomas and they four 
Judith Stowell. Then the five elected 
Leonora Hunt, Sophronia Sanborn, Caro- 
line Hosmer, and Bridget Monahan.” 

‘‘That last was a curious choice.” 

‘‘Every one of the five voted for her. 
She looks as though she had been brought 
up in a potato patch, but she is witty and 
the kindest-hearted girl in the world.” 

‘‘Are you limited to nine?” 

‘‘Yes, that is part of our constitution. 
In our secret rites each girl assumes the 
part of one of the nine muses.” 

‘‘How did you come to leave out Chris- 
tina Locke?” 

‘‘All the girls are a little afraid of her.” 

‘‘They will have reason to be if they 


Geraldine’s saints 


19 


form this sorority without her. She is the 
most influential girl in school.” 

‘‘That’s just it, she would want to domi- 
nate. The rest are such nice girls.” 

‘‘That will be the criticism, that you 
have chosen your pets. These nine girls 
are all docile, well-behaved, lovable, but 
they are not the nine girls who are to make 
leaders among women. It seems to me a 
sorority should be prophetic; it should 
choose not the girls popular today, largely 
on account of environment, but girls who 
will make fine women when character 
counts.” 

Miss Upton laughed indulgently; she 
never took Mr. Everett seriously. ‘‘You 
can’t very well select a sorority from a 
man’s point of view,” she said: ‘‘this is 
woman’s work.” 


20 


Geraldine’s saints 


“Is it too late for me to protest against 
this movement?” 

“0 yes. We have adopted a constitu- 
tion and initiated the nine members. All 
we want is the Greek motto for the pins.” 

“May I suggest that before this is made 
known you obtain permission of the 
board?” 

“That seems unnecessary since there is 
no regulation against it.” 

“It has not at all occurred to you that 
I should have been consulted?” 

“Only as to the two Greek words: thank 
you very much for them. Of course you 
won’t make trouble for us?” 

“I am not sure I ought not to forbid 
this sorority.” 

“As Canute forbade the waves to rise 
higher? Don’t try, Mr. Everett. There 
is a tide in the affairs of girls, and taken 


Geraldine’s saints 


21 


at its flood it has formed the Gamma 
Sigma society.” 

“I foresee trouble.” 

“We are responsible and we will take 
care of it. Promise me you won’t be dis- 
agreeable about it.” 

“If I permit it at all I shall stand by 
you in it.” 

“And you will permit it?” 

“Since you have not thought it necessary 
to consult me I will not interfere.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Everett. That is a 
diplomatic answer. I see you do not 
mean we shall hold you responsible, and 
we won’t.” 

IV 

Mr. Everett had not overestimated 
Christina Locke. She was an unusual 
girl. Motherless at five, she had been 
allowed by her father to grow up in her 


22 


Geraldine’s saints 


own way. On the whole it was a good way. 
Her instincts were correct, and she had 
singularly high ideals. 

In character, in conduct, in scholarship 
she was impatient if she seemed to be 
reaching anything but the best. Hence 
she was gloomy much of the time over her 
inferior accomplishments. Her face was 
somber, her mien critical. But when her 
face broke into a smile her countenance 
was illuminated and no one whom that 
smile enveloped forgot it or felt the same 
again toward her. She was ready to do 
for others too. Once when fire broke out 
in her room and the teacher lost her head 
it was Christina, then ten years old, who 
marshalled the pupils, marched them in 
order down the stairs, and prevented a 
panic. The event had become a legend 
in the school, and she was looked up to 


Geraldine’s saints 


23 


with a certain awe. As she grew she looked 
the part, and in another panic the pupils 
would have gathered about her. 

That was her heroic side. She had 
another. When she was disappointed in 
herself she became moody, irritable, sar- 
castic. She had a cruel tongue. She was 
a true satirist, impatient with imperfec- 
tion because she saw the perfect. 

She was capable of deep resentment. 
Unfortunately she did not sputter out her 
anger and let it flicker into forgetfulness. 
She let it gather and permeate till it per- 
vaded her. Once a fireplace in her home 
with too shallow a setting heated the beams 
in the floor to burning. For days nothing 
was noticed, then there was a smell of 
smoke, finally smoke began to creep out 
in another room from the ends of the 
rafters. After much search they dis- 


24 


Geraldine’s saints 


covered that the ceiling below was heated, 
and by passing the hands over it found that 
it was hottest under the beams near the 
fireplace overhead. A fireman thrust his 
axe through the ceiling, and the smoulder- 
ing timbers burst into flame that would 
have destroyed the house had not help 
been at hand. Her anger was like those 
smouldering timbers, hopelessly growing 
because it did not find vent. 

When the nine girls began to wear their 
Gamma Sigma pins Christina was at first 
amused. When the thought that she 
should have been selected occurred to her 
she gave a laugh of indifference. But when 
it became known that the nine were practi- 
cally chosen by Miss Upton and repre- 
sented her idea of the worthiest, Christina 
felt the injustice of being omitted. Once 
the idea found lodgment it grew, mordant, 


GERALDINE S SAINTS 


25 


revengeful. The nine were not the style 
of girls she particularly favored, seeming 
to her rather conventional and flavorless. 

“What does Gamma Sigma stand for,” 
a girl asked one recess, as the matter was 
being discussed. 

“G. S.?” she replied lightly; “manifestly 
for Geraldine’s Saints.” 

It proved a taking appellation. There- 
after the nine girls were spoken of and 
addressed as Saint Bona, Saint Evangeline, 
Saint Sophronia. “Where is Saint Ju- 
dith?” one would ask; and another would 
reply, “I haven’t seen her lately. Saint 
Charlotte, do you know where Saint 
Judith is?” 

When the Monahan girl was called by 
Christina Saint Bridget, she reddened and 
her fingers twitched, but she said gently, 
“Christina, that is meant for a joke and 


26 


GERALDINE S SAINTS 


jokes are all right, but I am a Catholic 
and to me it is irreverent, making light of 
sacred things. Please do not call me Saint 
Bridget.” 

It was sweetly said. Ordinarily Chris- 
tina would have thrown her arms about 
the girl’s neck and smiled upon her and 
apologized. But it happened to be one 
of Christina’s self-contemptuous days and 
it deepened her dissatisfaction with her- 
self to see this Irish girl from coarse sur- 
roundings whose instinct would have been 
to knot her fingers in Christina’s hair, so 
control herself as to make this gentle, 
unreproaching, lovable request. As the 
flame broke out at the touch of the fire- 
man’s axe, all that was bad in Christina 
spoke as she replied: 

“From what I know of your Catholic 


Geraldine’s saints 


27 


saints, they weren’t much better than you 
are, Saint Bridget.” 

Bridget’s eyes flashed, and though she 
kept her voice steady she yielded to a re- 
sentment of her own. “Christina Locke,’ ” 
she said, “so long as we are both in this 
school I will never again speak to you, or 
hear you, or see you. You shall be as one 
that is not.” 

Bridget kept her word, and when she 
had told her story to her eight fellow 
Gamma Sigmas they made the same vow. 
So Christina went about a Peter Grimm 
so far as these girls were concerned, seeing 
and hearing but unseen and unheard. 
She had not believed a punishment could 
be so severe. It got upon her nerves, and 
blew her anger into a fierce flame. She 
no longer thought of ideals : all she wanted 
was revenge. 


28 


Geraldine’s saints 


She had her friends among the pupils 
who resented this action of the Gamma 
Sigmas, and the school became divided 
into two factions. One day Christina 
happened to hear Faustina Thomas call 
Caroline Hosmer Urania. Her quick mind 
associated the name with the nine muses 
and the nine Gamma Sigmas. She told 
her suspicions, the others kept watch, and 
in a day or two the nine names had been 
apportioned, so that now instead of calling 
the sorority members St. Charlotte, St. 
Sophronia, etc., a joke that had lost its 
freshness, they called them Thalia, Euterpe, 
Terpsichore, Melpomene. Pictures of the 
nine muses in scanty attire were labelled 
and displayed in school, and the ridicule 
became so tormenting that the nine girls 
ceased to wear their pins. 


Geraldine’s saints 


29 


VI 

By this time the responsibility for the 
society had become generally attributed 
to Miss Upton, and her popularity grew 
less and less till the school was bitter against 
her, most of all her nine muses. It was a 
new experience for which Geraldine was 
wholly unfitted; it was as though she 
were transported with only summer cloth- 
ing from New Orleans to Alaska. She 
approached her pupils with a beaming 
smile only to be avoided, perhaps with a 
sneer not wholly concealed. As she passed 
a group there would be a lifting of eye- 
brows, perhaps a titter: she knew she was 
being ridiculed. The phrase “Geraldine’s 
saints” hurt her not only for its sneer but 
because it dealt familiarly with her name. 
With all her graciousness she had always 
maintained a quiet dignity ; only her in- 


30 


Geraldine's saints 


timate friends had called her Geraldine, 
and now this name was bandied among 
the boys and girls in contempt. 

Even her power of discipline seemed 
lost. She had never had to think of con- 
trol; her pupils had been always eager to 
anticipate her wishes. But now she had 
to command, to reiterate, to reprove, even 
to punish. All the wealth of knowledge 
and culture that she had lavished upon the 
recitation became unavailable; her time 
was occupied in keeping order. She was 
not sure she could do that much longer. 
The wise thing to do was to resign. 

But could she? A humiliating obstacle 
stood in the way. Her Italian trip had 
cost her a half more than she had antici- 
pated, she had come to Sprucehaven deeply 
in debt ; even if she got her pay to the end 
of the year she could hardly meet her bills. 


Geraldine's saints 


31 


If her salary ceased now she was certain 
to be annoyed and perhaps prosecuted. 
There was nobody she could borrow from. 
She had not even a place to go. The 
Pryors had been glad to have her in the 
summer vacation, but during the year 
they would not expect or tolerate her. 
She could make hopping visits here and 
there, but that would cost as much as to 
board, and she had no money for it. 

Could she get another place to teach? 
It was doubtful, with the record of having 
to resign here, even if she should happen 
to find a suitable vacancy in the middle 
of the year. Besides, she had begun to 
question whether she had capacity to 
teach. She had got on well enough where 
schools ran on rails, but the moment there 
was an accident she was helpless. 

In her desperation one possibility flashed 


32 


Geraldine’s saints 


across her. Eusebius Polley had made it 
plain he wanted to marry her. He had 
means enough to support a wife, and he 
would be glad to assume the responsibility 
of her maintenance. The possibility only 
flashed; in that instant it reminded her 
how loathsome it seemed even to touch 
his hand in conventional greeting. There 
was no one else who would marry her. 
She had refused two offers and kept others 
from making it necessary to refuse them, 
but if she notified any one of them she 
had changed her mind he would be likely 
to reply so had he. At the best it would 
be selling herself for a home. She could 
not do that. 

Why could she not have listened to Mr. 
Everett? All he predicted had come true, 
but she had been too conceited to listen. 
He had been considerate in this matter. 


Geraldine’s saints 


33 


He had never once said “I told you so.” 
In fact he had ignored all the disturbances 
that had arisen, holding himself serenely 
above their little contentions. There was 
a good deal of the Jove about him; at least 
he was a big man, big of body, big of mind, 
big of heart, big of soul. How contemp- 
tible it made a mite of a headstrong woman 
like her seem. How she must have amused 
him with her assurance and her meddling. 
She was astonished that he had tolerated 
her. She wondered if he would give her 
a recommendation, qualified of course, 
but with enough good points named to 
get her another place. 

VII 

The quarrels of the pupils reached the 
parents- and complaints overwhelmed the 
board. On the same Friday night that 
Miss Upton was so desperate Mr. Everett 


34 


Geraldine’s saints 


was summoned to a meeting by a telephone 
message from the president that sounded 
peremptory. He had succeeded no better 
than with the pupils and the teachers and 
the commnituty in establishing what seem- 
ed to him normal relation with his board 
of education In his previous schools he 
had been ex officio secretary and present 
at meetings ; his judgment had been always 
asked and usually followed; whatever dis- 
cussion occurred had been purely friendly, 
with mutual confidence and cooperation. 
This board had not before invited him to 
a meeting or asked his advice. It had 
given him some instructions, and a book 
of regulations which showed which com- 
mittee he must consult if he wanted to 
branch out from the path laid down, but 
so far it had not even made an inquiry of 
him: it had asked Miss Upton. 


Geraldine’s saints 


35 


So Mr. Everett was not in a wholly 
amiable mood when he entered the board 
room. The meeting was under way and 
as he came in it was manifest that he had 
been under discussion. The president 
wasted no time in preliminaries. “Mr. 
Everett,” he said, “we are told that a so- 
rority has been formed in the high school.” 

“That is true,” replied Mr. Everett. 

“Are you not aware that this board is 
opposed to secret societies among the 
pupils?” 

“I know that the board took action to 
that effect three or four years ago.” 

“Then how do you presume to form such 
a society without consulting us?” 

“The board has made no regulation upon 
the subject. The minutes merely show 
that four years ago a majority of the board 
as it was then were opposed.” 


36 


Geraldine’s saints 


“But would it not have been the cour- 
teous thing to have consulted us?” 

“Possibly.” 

“Are you here to run the school your 
way, or the way the board wants it run?” 

“I am subject to the action of the board. 
On points on which they have not taken 
action I am to exercise my best judgment.” 

“And your best judgment started this 
tom-fool girls society?” 

“It was established with my knowledge 
and consent.” 

“I hope you are proud of this evidence 
of your lack of sense.” 

“Mr. Sawyer,” said the principal with 
deliberation, “I don’t know what kind of 
principals you have had here before, but 
I assure you no board of education can 
address me in that tone. I am not your 
chauffeur. I am at the head of your school, 


Geraldine’s saints 


37 


and I am to be so respected and addressed.” 

‘‘By God, while I am president of this 
board — ”, Mr. Sawyer began, but other 
members interrupted, ‘‘0 give him a fair 
chance”, ‘‘He’s right about that, Sawyer”, 
“Let Mr. Hutton do the questioning”; and 
Mr. Sawyer remarked surlily, “All right, 
if you want Hutton to do the talking let 
him take this fellow in hand.” 

Mr. Hutton was a smooth, sleek lawyer, 
famous for skill in cross-questioning, and 
the members leaned back to enjoy his 
battle of wits with the principal. 

“Mr. Everett,” he began, “I understand 
that you assume all responsibility for this 
sorority?” 

“I do.” 

“You furnished the name for it?” 

“The motto? Yes, sir.” 


38 


Geraldine’s saints 


“You knew there had never been a 
secret society of pupils in the school?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“So that to establish this sorority was 
an innovation?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Would you think you had authority 
to change, say the hours of school, without 
consulting the board?” 

“Certainly not.” 

“Or the course of study?” 

“I should not think of it.” 

“Then why did you introduce such a 
new feature in the school?” 

“The school law specifically puts the 
hours of school and the course of study 
under the authority of the board. It says 
nothing of secret societies.” 

“As a matter of fact, did you not antici- 


Geraldine’s saints 


39 


pate that if you consulted the board ob- 
jection would be made?” 

“I thought it probable.” 

“Then in establishing it you were vir- 
tually disobeying the board?” 

“That is not a fair deduction. In a way 
the sorority was an experiment. Before 
it had been tried, the board might be pre- 
judiced against it, but if it was tried and 
if it succeeded the board might look upon 
it with favor.” 

At this point Eusebius Polley broke in. 
He was a lawyer of the over-keen kind, 
sharp enough as Goethe says in Egmont 
not to be sharp. He had taken a great 
fancy to Miss Upton and had met with 
little encouragement. He saw an oppor- 
tunity to pose as her champion and perhaps 
win her favor. 

“Mr. Everett,” he began, “you haven’t 


40 


Geraldine’s saints 


been very popular with the pupils, have 
you?” 

Mr. Everett looked at him as a New 
Foundland might upon a spaniel. “I have 
not proved as likable to my pupils as I 
could have desired,” he replied. 

“And Miss Upton has been very pop- 
ular?” 

“She has been very much beloved, and 
deservedly.” 

“But you have been jealous of her, 
haven’t you?” 

Mr. Everett laughed, the laugh of a big 
man. “I have been guilty of a good many 
weaknesses,” he replied, “but I think I 
have managed thus far to avoid that.” 

“Now, Mr. Everett, let us get right down 
to brass tacks. You got up this society, 
didn’t you?” 


“I am responsible for it.” 


Geraldine’s saints 


41 


“You knew that it would create all these 
little quarrels and envyings and back- 
bitings and make trouble for Miss Upton 
and get her unpopular and so let you slide 
into the good graces of the pupils, didn’t 
you now? Come, own up.” 

“Mr. Polley,” replied Mr. Everett with 
a smile, “that is too Machiavellian for me. 
I can’t even grasp it when you state it, 
and I certainly could not have conceived 
it.” 

“Well, gentlemen,” broke in Mr. Sawyer 
impatiently, “I think we’ve talked this 
over enough, and I think we are all agreed 
that Mr. Everett has exceeded his authori- 
ty, has disregarded the board, and has 
proved unworthy of his position, and that 
we shall be glad of his resignation.” 

“That is hardly just,” remarked Mr. 
Kendall, a retired clergyman and an emi- 


42 


Geraldine’s saints 


nently fair-minded man. “Mr. Everett 
has a wife and two children. It is unrea- 
sonable to dismiss him in the middle of the 
year.” 

“Don’t let that disturb you,” remarked 
the principal contemptuously. “I have 
more than a year’s salary in the bank and 
I am quite able to provide for my family, 
independently of my place here. But I 
am not willing to resign. I have not been 
here long enough to have a fair chance. 
I have never before failed in a school and 
I do not expect to fail here, but I must 
have time to get hold of the situation. It 
has taken me longer than it has in other 
schools, but there is just as good material 
here when I get control of it, and I mean 
to leave as clear a record here as elsewhere.” 

Mr. Sawyer struck the table in front of 
him with his fist and was about to say 


Geraldine’s saints 


43 


something violent when Dr. Merrill inter- 
posed. He was the family physician of 
all the members and when he spoke he was 
always listened to. “Mr. Everett,” he 
said, “I want to ask you a few questions.” 

“I shall be glad to answer them.” 

“As a matter of fact, was not this soro- 
rity established and the members initiated 
before you knew anything about it?” 

Mr. Everett looked surprised, but he 
replied, “Yes, sir.” 

“Did you not say that the board had 
once taken action against such organiza- 
tions and advise that it be consulted?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Did you not say that you felt you ought 
to forbid it, only to be told that it already 
existed, and that to forbid it would be like 
Canute forbidding the tide to rise?” 


44 


Geraldine’s saints 


“I don’t know how you learned all this, 
but it is true.” 

“And yet you come before us and assume 
all the responsibility.” 

“Assuredly. I am principal of the school 
and if I permitted it to go on I am respon- 
sible for it.” 

“I am very glad we have had this gal- 
lant defence of Miss Upton and her nine 
girls,” said Dr. Merrill to the astonished 
members. “My information came from 
Miss Upton herself. She was nervously 
wrought up and called me in this afternoon. 
I told her Mr. Everett was to be summoned 
before us. She was indignant that he 
should be blamed and made me promise 
to put this previous conversation about it 
before you. I think you will see, gentle- 
men, that we have been scolding Mr. 
Everett for what he did his best to prevent, 


Geraldine’s saints 


45 


but for what when it had proved disas- 
trous he has chivalrously assumed the 
responsibility. We all owe him an apol- 
ogy, and yet we must all rejoice that 
we have thus become acquainted with a 
rare man, whom henceforth we shall hold 
in very different esteem.” 

As he concluded he walked forward and 
took Mr. Everett’s hand. Such was Dr. 
Merrill’s standing with his fellow-members 
that they all followed his example, even 
Mr. Polley admitting that he had seen 
through a millstone there wasn’t any hole 
in. The secretary of the board, who was 
a member, offered his resignation and 
moved that Mr. Everett be appointed in 
his place. The motion was carried unani- 
mously, and the proceedings went on with 
the new officer taking notes at the table. 


46 


GERALDINE S SAINTS 


VIII 

“Now, Mr. Secretary,” said the president 
with a beaming smile, for whatever side 
he was on he was on with both feet, and 
just now he was the greater believer in 
Mr. Everett because he had treated him 
unjustly, “what are we going to do with 
Geraldine’s saints?” 

“I beg your pardon,” Mr. Everett said 
earnestly, “I wish you would not use that 
phrase or permit others to. It involves 
a familiarity with Miss Upton’s name that 
is not fitting and that must be distasteful 
to her.” 

“You are quite right, quite right, Mr. 
Everett ; I withdraw the expression. What 
are we going to do with the Gamma Sigma 
sorority?” 

“Forget it,” replied Mr. Everett with 
decision. “It has never been officially 


Geraldine’s saints 


47 


recognized and it need not be now. The 
girls have already ceased wearing their 
pins and will be glad enough to have the 
whole affair pass out of remembrance.” 

“But will it?” 

“Most assuredly. The mountains of 
today’s gossip are tomorrow lost in the 
indistinguishable plains of forgetfulness. 
We can accelerate their disappearance.” 

“How?” 

“By substituting something else to talk 
about. Till the last five years the school 
used to have a picnic about this time. 
Let’s revive it, and the Gamma Sigmas 
will be forgotten.” 

“Not a bad idea; the old picnics used to 
be fun. What will it cost?” 

“We can get Andrahofsky’s grove from 
ten till five, with band for dancing, for a 
hundred and fifty dollars. It does not 


48 


Geraldine’s saints 


open till the first but it is already been 
made spick and span.” 

“Good; I’ll give fifty myself,” cried the 
president, who was as generous as he was 
hasty. The subscription was completed 
on the spot and all the details were en- 
trusted to the principal with power. 

IX 

The picnic proved a complete success. 
Mr. Everett announced it on Monday 
morning for the following week, on Thurs- 
day if the weather reports were favorable, 
if not on the first pleasant day. It was to 
be a basket picnic, but ice cream and 
abundance of milk would be provided. 
Every child would have a ticket to every 
attraction in the place, with three to the 
merry-go-round. There would be dancing, 
and games of all kinds for the younger 


ones. 


Geraldine’s saints 


49 


As Mr. Everett had predicted, the picnic 
absorbed all conversations, but he did 
more. “Miss Upton,” he inquired, “did 
you ever conduct a pageant?” 

“Not exactly,” she replied, “but at 
Ashburnham we had great success with a 
‘Festival of spring’ ”. 

“Have you a copy?” 

“Yes, I keep one on hand for its capital 
quotations from the poets.” 

“Just the thing,” said Mr. Everett as 
he looked it over. “Let’s assign these 
parts to the senior class in a way to wipe 
out all thought of the discrimination made 
by that sorority.” 

Miss Upton blushed. “I have wanted 
to talk to you about that and how I per- 
sisted against your advice and how right 
you proved and yet how you stood by 


50 


Geraldine’s saints 


me,” she said. “You are more that Clem- 
entine Anthony told me.” 

“Of course I stood by you,” he replied: 
“I never lost confidence in you for a min- 
ute. Now you stand by me in this Festival 
of spring and we will wipe the Gamma 
Sigmas out of memory.” 

The cast was selected with care, the 
principal part being given to Christina 
Locke, and the others so distributed as 
not to associate any two of the nine muses. 
Mr. Everett called the senior class into 
a private room and asked them, “Can you 
all keep a secret?” 

They all could and they longed to. 

“The board of education is treating us 
very generously,” he said, “and I want to 
give them a surprise. Just after dinner 
I want you to present a little play called 
the Festival of spring. All the costumes 


Geraldine’s saints 


51 


will be provided and kept where you can 
assume them at a signal, but I don’t want 
a single person, even your fathers and 
mothers, to know that it is going to occur. 
Are you sure every one of you can keep 
it absolutely dark?” 

They clapped their hands: they were 
absolutely sure. So the books were dis- 
tributed and the play was made the regular 
work of the class in English. Every one 
was satisfied with the part assigned, and 
the glimpses given of the costumes were 
most enticing. It went off beautifully. 
The tables had been spread before the 
stage on which entertainments were fur- 
nished during the season, and after dinner 
was over the class dropped out one by one 
and got into their costumes in the dressing 
rooms, so that they were ready when the 
curtain went up. It was so great a sur- 
prise, so well done, and so pretty in itself 


52 


Geraldine’s saints 


that everybody was delighted. Never 
before had the school been so enthusiastic 
and proud and united as when it dispersed 
that night. It was noticeable that there 
was never again a reference to Geraldine’s 
saints: some way the impropriety of even 
repeating the phrase was felt by all. 

X 

Years afterward when Mr. Everett was 
reviewing his experiences as a teacher he 
remarked, “It is curious how what seems 
at the time a stroke of luck often leads to a 
train of misfortunes, and on the other hand 
what looks at first a disaster may turn out 
to be the foundation of success. At 
Sprucehaven a sorority was formed that 
came near resulting in my dismissal, yet 
it proved to be the means of my getting 
hold of what had proved a difficult school, 
but was thereafter the most satisfactory 
in my experience.” 


Around the world 



AROUND THE WORLD 


I 

He had worked hard and steadily ever 
since he could remember. In school, in 
college, for the eight years he had been 
teaching, he had kept on the jump. His 
vacations had been his busiest seasons. 
He had made every minute count. 

Now he was going to rest. He was going 
to take a year off, not to study, not to get 
background for his teaching, not even to 
begin his sentences “When I was abroad”, 
but simply to idle. He was going to have 
no purposes, no plans. Wherever he land- 
ed he would stay till he was tired of it, 
and if he were tired of it after a day he 
would move on, were it Rome itself. He 
( 55 ) 


56 


AROUND THE WORLD 


had often wondered what Walt Whitman 
meant by 

Loaf and invite my soul. 

He meant to find out. His time and 
his resources seemed so unlimited that he 
rather expected to go around the world, 
but he might not even finish up Europe. 
He did not care whether he finished up 
anything. He was out for a rest, not for a 
record. 

II 

He sailed by a Mediterranean line be- 
cause that would dump him into the most 
unaccustomed, and he landed at Algiers. 
It was a good choice. He enjoyed the 
climate, the scenery, the city, the bus 
rides, the people, especially the Bedouins. 
He had no use for guides. He preferred to 
poke his nose about. He walked back from 
Bougarea down the stony hill, though 


AROUND THE WORLD 


57 


The roads were not passable, 

Not even jackassable. 

He was sometimes shown that he was 
trespassing on forbidden ground, but he 
was always respectful and respected. He 
made no acquaintances among his kind. 
He had not come to Africa to talk with 
Americans and English and French. He 
spent most of his time on the hill, saying 
little, seeing much. 

It was out of season, and he had always 
had his little table at the Hotel des Etran- 
gers to himself, but one day a steamer 
party had chosen to take lunch there for 
the sake of boasting that they had eaten a 
meal in Africa, and had filled the room. 
The head waiter asked permission to bring 
to his table a lady also a guest at the hotel 
whose usual place was occupied by these 
strangers. He rose to welcome her, of 


58 


AROUND THE WORLD 


course, and expressed the conventional 
felicitation that chance made them ac- 
quainted, but as a matter of fact he had 
the least possible interest in her. He had 
seen her often. She was of the butterfly 
type, indolent, overdressed, luxuriant, 
aristocratic in feeling, he thought to him- 
self, but worthless, a cumberer of the 
ground. He had gathered from conversa- 
tion of the waiters that she was there with 
her mother, an invalid who did not go out 
of her room. 

The lady had resented being displaced, 
and seated herself with no more than re- 
quired courtesy. “I may as well get ready 
to answer his first three questions, ‘How 
long have you been here?’ ‘How long do 
you stay?’ ‘How are you enjoying it?’ ” 
she thought to herself contemptuously, 
but curiously enough he betrayed no 


AROUND THE WORLD 


59 


personal interest in her whatever. He 
pointed out the view across the Mediter- 
ranean as though she might not have 
grasped all its beauty, looking past her 
four-hundred dollar gown straight from 
Paquin without even a glance of admira- 
tion. 

Then he spoke of the day’s guests. 
“These people will go back to America and 
tell about seeing Algiers,’’ he said. “How 
little notion they have of it.’’ 

“What should they have seen?” she 
asked, rather disdainfully. 

“Of course I have grasped very little 
in my single week,” he replied, “but it 
seemed to me I got my first inner glance 
last night. You know how bright the 
moonlight was. I wandered up Rue Ran- 
don; Rue Med£e with its sharp turnings; 
Rue de la Mer Rouge, thinking to myself 


60 


AROUND THE WORLD 


it might have got its name from the clos- 
ing up of its walls, yet not so much narrow- 
er than most of the streets of this quarter, 
where the projecting second stories, held 
up by poles, come almost within reaching 
distance of each other, and where the little 
latticed windows show that the women 
inside are under harem government. Turn- 
ing to the right I crossed Rue Porte Neuve 
and traversed the Arab quarter horizon- 
tally by Rue Kleber, with its staircases of 
steps, its little fruit and vegetable shops, 
its caf6s with here and there a grave-faced 
Arab smoking a final pipe. Then I mount- 
ed again by Rue Desaix and turned to 
the right through the saturnalia of Rue 
Barbarossa. A few steps and I was on 
the Boulevard VaRe, looking down in the 
moonlight upon the Mediterranean, as 
quiet and peaceful as all I had just come 


AROUND THE WORLD 


61 


from was unnatural and corrupt. Then 
down through the Jardin Marengo where, 
beneath the palms, its fountain bubbling 
in the centre, all was solitude save where 
now and then a white-robed figure glided 
silently through a narrow path like a spirit 
of Charon just transported. Then into 
the Place Bab el Oued, where omnibuses, 
a steam tram, and a military caserne 
brought me at a jump again into European 
civilization. All this would have been so 
impossible elsewhere that it seemed to me 
the real Algiers.” 

He felt that he had told it very well. 
As a matter of fact he had been composing 
it in his mind for a letter he was to write 
to the school newspaper, and he was glad 
to have a chance to try it on her. 

But she had listened with a wearied air. 
“I have seen none of these things,” she 


62 


AROUND THE WORLD 


said indifferently; “I suppose I shouldn’t 
if I lived here for years. A girl can’t go 
walking alone in the moonlight.” 

It sounded a little like an invitation, but 
he was adamant to such a suggestion. 
Why should he break up his day to help 
this spoiled beauty while hers away? So 
he said, “Of course the guides will take you 
everywhere.” 

“My experience with guides is unfortu- 
nate,” she said. “A friend came over from 
Marseilles with us for a day or two, and we 
allowed a guide to show us the sights. He 
spoke only French and my American friend 
spoke only English, so I translated to her 
all he said, with comments upon his ig- 
norance and his rapacity. The next day 
I was detained at the hotel and she went 
around with him alone. He spoke the 
readiest English.” 


AROUND THE WORLD 


63 


“It is not safe to count on a guide’s ig- 
norance of any language,” he replied. “A 
classmate of mine was approaching Na- 
poleon’s tomb, and an insistent guide 
pestered him. My friend affected not to 
understand the French and English and 
German and a dozen other languages in 
which he was addressed, till finally the 
guide said in French, ‘But you must speak 
some language.’ My friend turned to him 
and said as if he were asking the time of 
day 

Mrjviv aeiSe, 0ea, IlTjXrj'CdSeco ’A^iXrjo?. 
Without an instant’s hesitation and in the 
same matter-of-fact tone the guide re- 
plied, 

ovXofievrjv , 7) fivpt ’A %cwo£? aA/ye e Or) ice” 

The lady looked bored. “You will be 
surprised that I recognize the first two 
lines of the Iliad,” she said. “Don’t draw 


64 


AROUND THE WOALD 


any conclusions — I shouldn’t recognize 
any other.” 

It was annoying to be thus convicted of 
cheap pedantry. As a matter of fact it 
was stupid to quote Greek lines to a girl 
without explanation and he was properly 
rebuked. His distaste for his visitor grew 
into dislike. There was something inso- 
lent in the contemptuous indifference with 
which she answered him. 

The conversation between them dwin- 
dled. He had started to display his best to 
her for practice, but if his best was treated 
with disdain, why continue the effort? 
So he fell back on commonplaces and was 
glad when the meal was over. 

The more he thought about it, the more 
his dislike accumulated. His afternoon 
was really spoiled because his thoughts 
would recur to her and her contempt. 


AROUND THE WORLD 


65 


She was likely to be put at his table again. 
She might even ask to accompany him. 
She would have no pride about it, any 
more than she would about making use 
of a horse or a donkey or any other inferior 
animal. The more he reflected upon her 
the more of an incubus she seemed. 

Then the solution struck him. “Why 
do I stay here? They say her mother 
cannot go away from Algiers. I can escape 
her and there is no reason why I should 
remain longer.” 

So he got his dinner at a restaurant, 
packed his trunk, and took the early morn- 
ing train for Biskra. 

Ill 

It was a happy thought. He enjoyed 
the journey, with its stop at El Guerra, 
and when at sunset he got from El Kantara 


66 


AROUND THE WORLD 


his first glimpse of the desert he felt grate- 
ful to his tormentor for driving him out 
from the ante-room into the real palace. 
Biskra just fitted his mood. There was 
enough to do and see if he felt like it, or 
he could idle without restlessness, drinking 
in the deep joys of devitalization. 

One morning the landlady of the Hotel 
du Sahara said, “May I inquire if mon- 
sieur plans a long stay?” 

“Why, madame, the one thing I plan 
is to have no plans,” he replied. “I like 
to be free as air.” 

“It is this way,” she continued. “We 
have a telegram asking for connecting 
rooms on the front. Monsieur has one of 
these rooms. If he were likely to remain 
say a month we would not think of dis- 
turbing him, but this party engages rooms 
for six weeks, and if monsieur were to re- 


AROUND THE WORLD 


67 


main but a few days he might not be un- 
willing to be discommoded.” 

Monsieur was very unwilling to be 
discommoded. He loved his room on the 
park. He knew every one of the night 
noises of Biskra, and he had learned to 
listen for them and enjoy them. There 
were four clocks that struck the hours, 
two of them the quarters, a little apart. 
In the middle of the night he could waken 
to hear the three-quarters of the last one, 
and be back in slumber again before the 
first one reached the hour. Then there 
were the mosque bells and the bugles at 
5:30 to listen for. It was like sleeping 
in the garden itself. 

No, he could not give up that room; and 
after all, why not a month? No place 
could better match his mood, and think of 
all there was to see and do. So he said, 


68 


AROUND THE WORLD 


“I engage the room for four weeks, ma- 
dame,” and felt well content to have it 
decided. 

IV 

That day he walked to Sidi-Okba. He 
had been told he could not do it, that it 
would exhaust him to wade so far in the 
sand, that he might lose his way, that a 
sand-storm might come up and he would 
be helpless, that he might be robbed or 
kidnapped or murdered — there was no law 
beyond Biskra, where the French control 
ceased. 

He listened good-naturedly, but he walk- 
ed there just the same. The twelve miles 
were more tiring than he expected, and the 
scraggy little chicken he got at the inn was 
hardly lunch enough. But the place was 
interesting and he was glad he came; he 
started back in good spirits. 


AROUND THE WORLD 


69 


The dozen miles seemed much longer, 
and there were times when he wished he 
had come by camel or donkey. Once he 
passed two ill-looking scoundrels who after 
consultation turned around and followed 
him a way. He was sure from the rapid 
glance he had given them that they were 
unarmed and even if they meant mischief 
he felt no great fear of them, so he did not 
alter his gait, and after a time they turned 
once more and went on again to Sidi-Okba. 
When he finally got to Biskra he was as 
tired and as hungry and as thirsty as he 
remembered ever to have been, and the 
joy of accomplishment put him in exu- 
berant spirit. Before he took his bath 
he spread a sheet on the floor and as he 
took them off he shook his garments one 
by one. He had been in suspicious sur- 
roundings but not a flea appeared, and 


70 


AROUND THE WORLD 


when he had assumed fresh clothing and 
sat down to dinner he was the most cheer- 
ful man in Biskra. He had just finished 
his potage croute au pot , as the menu called 
it, and had discovered that the bottle of 
Chablis he had ordered was unusually 
palatable, when the landlady came up and 
asked if she might seat a lady at his table. 
“Thank heaven, it can’t be my Algiers 
bugbear,” he smiled to himself as he rose. 
But the smile vanished. It was she. 

V 

Manifestly she was equally dumb-found- 
ed. “At least,” she remarked as she took 
her seat, “you won’t believe that I fol- 
lowed you here.” 

“No more than you would follow the 
porter who carried your trunk up from the 
steamer,” he said simply. 


AROUND THE WORLD 


71 


At least he was not wholly conceited, 
which was some relief — in a man. 

“Are you remaining here long?” she 
could not forbear asking. 

“Only this morning I promised the land- 
lady to stay a month,” he replied grimly. 
Evidently it was her party that had en- 
gaged rooms for six weeks. 

“I suppose the table d’hote meals are 
served at a fixed hour?” she asked. 

“At one and at seven. Madame ex- 
pects her gusets to be prompt.” 

He could see her reckoning 28x2 = 56, 
fifty-six hours of forced companionship. 
“There seem to be no other tourists,” 
she said. 

“No, this is out of season; the Royal 
Hotel is open only from November to 
May. All the other guests here just now 
are French commercial travellers, I think.” 


72 


AROUND THE WORLD 


She glanced at them. One of them was 
just sopping up the remains of a sweet 
sauce with a piece of bread; another was 
exhausting it with his knife. It was fate, 
kismet. 

“May I offer you a glass of Chablis?” 
he asked. “You will find it of unusually 
delicate bouquet.” 

“Thank you, I seldom drink wine,” 
she replied rather haughtily; adding, “I 
am not a connoisseur.” 

Another hit. He, an American school- 
teacher who had never opened a bottle of 
wine till he took the steamer a month ago, 
and was drinking it only because he had 
been told that foreign meals needed it for 
digestion, had been caught posing as an 
expert. How he hated this woman. 

After this the conversation was forced 
till suddenly she looked at him with resolu- 


AROUND THE WORLD 


73 


tion. “Think of fifty-six hours of such 
conventional common-places as these,” 
she said. “We must escape it somehow.” 

“If you will suggest a method?” he re- 
plied sarcastically. 

She looked about the room. Nobody 
was listening to them; it was doubtful if 
any one there understood English beyond 
the traveller’s vocabulary. 

“I see you wear a Phi Beta Kappa pin,” 
she said. “I have had a corresponding 
training. Is there not something wrong 
about our educations if they make it im- 
possible for us to find any good in each 
other. We are both respectable people.” 

“At least it is to be hoped we have re- 
deeming features,” he suggested. 

“Exactly. If we must be together so 
much, why not hunt for them?” 


“Our ideals are so different.” 


74 


AROUND THE WORLD 


“What do you know of my ideals? Am 
I to wear my heart on my sleeve at an 
inn-table?” 

“What do you suggest?” 

“There must be something in the ex- 
perience and the reflections of each of us 
that would be helpful to the other, if we 
could only hit upon it.” 

“What interest have you in opening up 
to me your experience and your reflec- 
tions?” 

“It isn’t bad to do this now and then, 
to get another’s viewpoint. And this is 
an unusual opportunity, for we shan’t be 
trying to make an impression on each 
other.” 

“Do you think it is ever possible to be 
unconscious of that? I tried to make an 
impression of my knowledge of wine just 


now. 


AROUND THE WORLD 


75 


“And were rebuked rudely. I saw you 
felt it. I beg your pardon.” 

“No, it was good for me. I am not sure 
your suggestion is not feasible. It would 
smart, but I am inclined to think it would 
do me good to bathe in your opinion of 
me. 

“You are beginning to seem quite human. 
I propose a game.” 

“I am beginning to feel cordial toward 
your proposition. What is it?” 

“We don’t approve of each other; we 
each embody about all the other dislikes. 
Suppose we agree each to tell the other 
what it is in the other one dislikes.” 

“On the first day of the twenty-eight? 
Why not wait till the last day, just before 
the train starts?” 

“No, the personal element is not to 
enter in. There is no possibility of our 


76 


AROUND THE WORLD 


liking each other, and little probability 
of our mutual dislike increasing. So we 
can speak with utter frankness. You can 
describe me, for instance, not as myself 
but as a type, in which I have the same 
intellectual interest as you, and ought to 
be able to judge as dispassionately." 

“I should be glad to have you point 
out to me the details of why I made so 
unfortunate an impression upon you." 

“Do you take coffee? Nor I. Let us 
stroll out under the palms.” 

VI 

When they were out of earshot she 
glanced at him and showed a malicious 
vindictiveness. “It is not quite fair to 
make the woman precede," she said, “but 
I will do it, to set you an example of plain- 
speaking. To begin with what one sees 
first, you are not very well dressed." 


AROUND THE WORLD 


77 


“My nakedness is covered.” 

“And that is about all. Your coat was 
made by a country tailor.” 

“I expect to wear home a suit made in 
London, but I did not think it made much 
difference while I was travelling.” 

“There is no objection to an old coat in 
travelling, but you should never have 
owned such a coat as you have on. It 
never fitted and the cloth has faded; one 
sees it as you lift your arm.” 

“I am glad of your judgment, and very 
likely shall revise my own by it. I have 
never thought much about clothes.” 

“Worst of all, you wear false collars, the 
kind every haberdasher displays in his 
window at two for a quarter.” 

“There I can defend myself. I have in 
my trunk twenty-three shirts with collars 
and cuffs on. The twenty-fourth I left 


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in my bureau-drawer at Algiers. I paid 
a franc for having it washed, and it had 
been pounded on the stones till it was fit 
only for a circular saw. Till I get where 
there is a civilized laundry I must depend 
upon these make-shifts.” 

“Your shirts can be done up beautifully 
in Paris and sent you by parcel post. The 
expense is something, but not so much as 
the difference. One’s linen comes first 
of all.” 

“I had not thought of parcel post and I 
thank you for the suggestion. I should 
wear collars on if only for the time saved 
in dressing.” 

“You save too much time in dressing. 
Your hair is only dabbed at, not brushed. 
Your tie looks as if there were no mirror 
in your room.” 

“I have heard of a professional necktier 


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79 


in Paris who goes from house to house, 
but I thought it was a joke.” 

“It is by no means a joke. You should 
have an ideal in tying your cravat, and 
attain it, even if you are late to dinner.” 

“At least it is a tie, and not a ready-made 
thing hooked on.” 

“Do you think I would discuss your 
attire with you if you wore one of those? 
No, you are a cleanly man: one feels sure 
of your bath and your fresh linen, other- 
wise you would be out of consideration. 
But you do not realize what a difference 
details make.” 

“This is really interesting and helpful. 
I have never had a sister to make sugges- 
tions, and I have simply growed, like 
Topsy. So much for the outside. Now 
for the manners.” 

“To tell the truth, you haven’t any.” 


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“At least that is better than having bad 
manners.” 

“No manners are bad manners, very 
bad.” 

“Where have I shown the lack of them 
with you?” 

“From the instant I first saw you at 
Algiers. You knew I was an American 
girl, a guest at your hotel. You should 
have sought my acquaintance immediate- 
ly.” 

“How did I know you desired it?” 

“It was bad manners not to know it. 
Good manners assume that you are a 
gentleman whom any lady, and good man- 
ners would assume that I was a lady, would 
be glad to know, where you and I were in a 
hotel as the only Americans.” 

“My idea was that we could observe 
one another, and that if mutual acquain- 


AROUND THE WORLD 


81 


tance proved desirable circumstances would 
bring it about.” 

“Exactly — if. Good manners ignore 
that if. They assume that we are both 
well-bred people, and that while at home 
or where there are a lot of Americans there 
might not be any special tie, the very fact 
that we are the only compatriots in a 
foreign city is reason enough for us to be- 
come acquainted at once.” 

“But on this trip I especially wanted 
to escape any sort of complication that 
would fetter me. I wanted for a year to 
be absolutely free.” 

“How primitive. That would fit one 
of Cooper’s solemn-faced Indians, but it 
is not good manners, whatever else may 
be said for it.” 

“I want to think that over a little. The 
presumption is that you are right, but I 


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must consider it. Now to get below man- 
ners, what did you see underneath to ob- 
ject to?” 

“That you are a schoolmaster.” 

“How did you know that?” 

‘‘You teachers might just as well wear 
a uniform or a celluloid button. I could 
tell you at the first glance, across the room.” 

‘‘How?” 

‘‘By your Dogberryism: 

And when I ope my lips let no dog 
bark. 

‘‘Of course you do not realize how you 
patronize everything. It seemed to you 
quite a credit to Algiers that you approved 
of it. Because I was not your kind of a 
girl you did not for an instant hesitate 
to disapprove of me at the first glance. 
Even the fact that you are a college- 
graduate and I am not gives you in your 


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83 


eyes superiority, though my education 
is in every way better than yours.” 

“That is an interesting statement. Tell 
me how you were educated.” 

“Though my parents are American I was 
fortunate enough to be born in Paris and 
spent my first six years there without 
speaking a word of English, so my French 
is native.” 

“You need not pause to contrast it with 
mine.” 

“I meant to spare you, but real French 
is a useful element of education. I speak 
German fluently and Italian fairly. At 
six my parents came back to New York, 
where I had a governess who was a won- 
derful woman. I used to wonder that any 
salary would tempt her to give such tal- 
ents to a single girl like me. At ten I was 
put into a private school. The pupils 


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were all from wealthy families but if we 
came there with any snobbishness it was 
filtered out of us. We were trained to be 
wives and mothers, but we were wisely 
trained. In the matter of health, for in- 
stance, we were taught to avoid all stimu- 
lants; even tea must be very pale with 
only a dash of lemon; coffee was mostly 
hot milk; and we got a distaste for sweets 
that has remained by me. In fact some- 
way we were so trained that the very fact 
a thing was not good for us made it un- 
welcome, and I have never felt inclination 
for any but the plainest food at regular 
hours. So I always have an appetite, and 
I never in my life had the sensation of a 
headache. Did your education give you 
all this?” 

“I have never had a headache, but I 


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85 


often eat what I shouldn’t and more than 
I should.” 

“Then your appetite has not been edu- 
cated as mine has. Were you taught 
to ride and drive and swim?” 

“No.” 

“I never saw a horse I was afraid to ride 
or drive, and I have swum across a lake 
half a mile wide . W ere you taught music ? ’ ’ 

“No, that was not included in my educa- 
tion.” 

“I can play Beethoven’s sonatas from 
cover to cover, not interpreting them, of 
course, any more than I could declaim 
Shakspere, but as readily and as intelli- 
gently as I read Shakspere. I know most 
of the operas well enough to give the Ital- 
ian words of the familiar airs. Indeed, I 
can recognize and place before a dozen 
bars are played most of the principal airs 


86 


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of the masterpieces in any field of music. 
It was part of my education. As I grow 
older I am inclined to think it is quite as 
important a part as to be able to recog- 
nize the first two lines of the Iliad.” 

“Spare me that too,” he interrupted. 
“It was unpardonably pedantic.” 

“Do you sketch?” 

“No.” 

They were under one of the dim street 
lamps. She drew forth a mite of a memo- 
randum book, and with the little blue 
pencil drew a few lines and handed the 
page to him. 

“Do you recognize that?” she asked. 

“It is our Algiers head waiter to the 
life. I can head him say, ‘If madame will 
permit me to suggest?’ ” 

“And so I might go on, till I think I 
could demonstrate that my training pre- 


AROUND THE WORLD 


87 


pared me for life quite as well as yours, 
and yet because you have a college diploma 
you look down upon me as uneducated. 
That is the schoolmaster’s point of view.” 

“There is much truth in what you say. 
I thank you for saying it.” 

“Do you know that is the way to dis- 
arm me, or was it only a happy hit?” 

“I don’t believe I want to disarm you. 
This is proving a profitable conversation. 
It is realizing the Scotch wish, 

To see oursel’ as ithers see us. 
Pray go on.” 

“No, I have said enough, probably too 
much . N o w tell me why you disliked me . ’ ’ 
“I have no heart to undertake it. You 
would prove me to have been as unjust 
in other matters as in your education.” 
“But that isn’t fair. We are playing a 


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game and I began. You must be as frank 
as I.” 

“Very well, I will try to be honest though 
humble. In the first place, I thought 
you put on airs.” 

“Meaning that I held myself above 
you?” 

“Yes.” 

“How did I show it?” 

“In every way. You disdained sitting 
at my table, you only grudgingly admitted 
my suggestion that it was basis for ac- 
quaintance, when I talked my best to you 
it only wearied you. When I ceased to 
make effort you did not go beyond com- 
mon-places, and the conversation became 
a mutual bore.” 

“I believe that is all true. My manners 


were worse than yours. Go on.” 


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89 


“I thought you were overdressed for an 
ordinary hotel lunch.” 

“Then you really observed my gown. 
I didn’t think you even saw it. I wore it 
to lunch because it had just come from 
Paris and I was trying it on.” 

“And incidentally were trying it on me, 
as I tried my rather ornate conversation 
on you, and with like unfortunate results.” 

She laughed. “You are a good deal 
brighter in conversation than I thought,” 
she said. “We aren’t going to have such 
a stupid time. I had supposed you would 
want to lecture to me as you did to your 
pupils.” 

“I don’t wonder you thought so from 
the start I made. I foresee that you are 
going to do me a lot of good. I can swallow 
medicine if I know it is going to benefit 


90 


AROUND THE WORLD 


“But you are giving the medicine now. 
Go on with what you don’t like about me.” 

“Call it what I didn’t like about you. 
Why, fundamentally you seemed to me of 
so little use in the world. I have always 
been a worker. You are a spender.” 

“I don’t know whether I could have been 
a worker. I never had to be. My father 
was a patent lawyer, high enough up ever 
since I can remember to make money a 
good deal faster than he could use it. 
He used to get enormous retainers. Once 
a bank made inquiry about a check for 
a hundred thousand dollars that had not 
been presented, and after some reflection 
he remembered that it was in the pocket 
of a waistcoat he had discarded. My 
mother has been ill since my birth, and to 
save her anxiety we have never owned a 
house or bought furniture; we have even 


AROUND THE WORLD 


91 


very little jewelry. So we have spent com- 
paratively little. Father put his surplus in- 
to bonds, and that accumulated, so that we 
never begin to use up our income and it 
goes on growing, growing. I was struck 
by it once when I was at school in New 
York, and one of the girls, from a wealthy 
family at that, envied me because our 
box at the opera was ours for every night 
in the week, instead of for Mondays and 
Thursdays like hers. I had never realized 
before that everybody didn’t have an 
opera box for every night, whether they 
used it or not.” 

“Couldn’t you do charitable work with 
your surplus?” 

“Is it easy to do charitable work? The 
little attempts I have made have proved 
unfortunate. I sometimes question even 
our subscriptions.” 


92 


AROUND THE WORLD 


“It isn’t the mere giving of money. It 
is looking up and following out the needs 
of those in want.” 

“That takes time I am not able to give. 
My mother is an invalid closely confined 
and requiring my constant attention. 
We have a nurse who is all that a nurse 
can be, but my mother needs a compan- 
ionship that only a daughter can give.” 

“What is her disease?” 

“There is none: she is just fading away. 
It is months since she has eaten a regular 
meal. She cannot bear the sight of food, 
or I should take mine in her room. She 
has grown feebler every week. We brought 
her from Paris to Nice, from Nice to Al- 
giers. Then even the Mediterranean 
breezes proved too strong for her, and our 
physician said she must be brought here.” 


AROUND THE WORLD 


93 


“I should have supposed the railway 
journey would be impossible.” 

“It would have been. We came by 
automobile, in a machine specially sent 
over from Paris. The first day we got 
only to Aumale, and she seemed greatly 
exhausted, but the next morning she ral- 
lied enough to insist on continuing, and we 
made the rest of the trip in two days. 
She does not seem much worse for it.” 

“Do you keep the machine here?” 

“No, we sent it back. We are unlikely 
ever to use it again, and it has always been 
our way to dispose of anything we no 
longer need.” 

“Your mother does not go out of her 
room?” 

“No. Her body has to be kept abso- 
lutely quiet, yet her mind is as bright as 
ever, and she is always cheerful. The 


94 


AROUND THE WORLD 


nurse sleeps in the same room, and I am 
where I can be summoned in a moment.” 

“By the way, when you return you will 
find your things removed to the room ad- 
joining your mother’s, opening like hers 
upon the porch.” 

“The landlady told us it was impossible 
to give us that room.” 

‘‘It was in order not to give it up that I 
promised to remain a month. But of 
course I did not know who wanted it. 
As we came out of the hotel I asked the 
landlady to see that the rooms were ex- 
changed.” 

“O Mr. Sabin, I couldn’t let you give 
up that room. And right after dinner, 
too, before we had had this talk.” 

‘‘My dear Miss Heath, it would have 
been quite impossible not to give it up 


AROUND THE WORLD 


95 


before we had had this talk. Think how 
unmentionable it would be now." 

“The talk really has brought us together, 
hasn’t it? And yet I began spitefully. 
It was unbelievable that you should re- 
ceive my malicious words with thought- 
ful consideration.” 

So when they parted they shook hands, 
warmly at that. 

VII 

As they were taking coffee one morning 
he asked, “I wonder if your mother would 
let me call on her just for an instant? I 
feel a real longing to see her.” 

Gwendolyn laughed. “Do you know,” 
she said, “I was groping for a way to pro- 
pose it. Mamma is much interested in 
you.” 

So at ten o’clock he was admitted. The 
moment he laid eyes upon Mrs. Heath he 


96 


AROUND THE WORLD 


knew he had seen his ideal woman. In 
her wasted body she was almost trans- 
parent, but her eyes shone with a wel- 
coming light and her features had the 
delicate refinement of his dreams. She 
extended her thin hand. “You have been 
so kind to Gwendolyn,’’ she smiled, *T 
wanted to see you.” 

He had never before kissed a lady’s 
hand but it seemed an instinct to carry 
hers to his lips, with a reverence the in- 
valid was quick to interpret. The charm 
grew upon him as they conversed, and 
after five minutes he said, “Mrs. Heath, 
you will pardon my bluntness, but I am 
enjoying this interview so much I shall 
not know when to go. That I may not 
scatter my attention by considering that, 
will you promise to tell me when you are 
fatigued?” 


AROUND THE WORLD 


97 


She promised, and he stayed far longer 
than he would have otherwise dared. She 
seemed to him like a shrine, an oracle. 
He had grown to enjoy Gwendolyn’s com- 
panionship, but with Gwendolyn he was 
always arguing, contending, protesting, 
defending; with her mother he simply 
drank inspiration. He discovered when 
he recalled the conversation that it had 
been mostly of himself, but he had talked 
as though he had known her all his life, 
and was putting before her his problems, 
his difficulties, his ideals. Her sympathy, 
her sagacity, her humor astonished him 
and delighted him. When her warning 
word came he did not need to tell her as 
he once more kissed her hand what a 
blessing he felt the interview to have been. 

Thereafter every day ten o’clock was 
his hour, and he staid till he was dismissed, 


98 


AROUND THE WORLD 


sometimes for a longer, sometimes for a 
shorter time, but always with the sense 
of communion with a higher spirit that 
was yet near to him and interested in him. 
On his part he thought of the invalid. 
Whatever happened, he tried to fix the 
salient points in his mind so as to make 
the telling of it interesting, and when he 
found a rare flower or an attractive bit 
of bizarre jewelry from the desert it was a 
triumph to secure it for her. Unconsciously 
his nature was undergoing transformation. 
His thoughts were no longer first for him- 
self. His brusque manner was becoming 
gracious, almost courtly. His ideals every 
day reached higher. 

VIII 

One day the mail was brought as they 
were finishing lunch. To Gwendolyn came 
a long white envelope with the name of a 


AROUND THE WORLD 


99 


firm in Wall street. She looked at it idly 
as she said : “That envelope contains a draft 
for twenty thousand francs. That was what 
I sent for because it was all I was likely to 
use the coming month. If I had said a hun- 
dred thousand or a million it would have 
come just the same and would not have 
meant any more. I fancy I lose something 
in not having to consider the price of any- 
thing. Most of the women I meet gloat 
so over the bargains they have found. I 
am shut out from bargains, and from the 
exultation of getting what I can’t afford.” 

“I believe there is something in that,” 
he said. “In a small way I can sympa- 
thize with you, for while I have never had 
much money I have always earned more 
than enough for my needs. I fancy there 
is a certain excitement in wondering 


100 


AROUND THE WORLD 


whether you can pay your board-bill. 
Still I am willing to miss it.” 

She continued to finger the envelope, 
at last with some perplexity. ‘‘This does 
not feel as thick as usual,” she said. “Do 
you mind if I open it?” 

There was no draft, and the letter read 
as follows: 

“Dear Miss Heath, 

“We have most unpleasant news for 
you. Our chief, Mr. Oliver, who had 
personal charge of your estate, has lost 
his mind and is confined in a private asy- 
lum. On investigating his affairs we find 
that he was upon the wrong side of the 
market in the panic of 1907, and that to 
protect himself he began to employ your 
securities, making use of his key to your 
safe-deposit vault and of his power of at- 
torney. Every share of stock, every bond 


AROUND THE WORLD 


101 


has been sold and you are absolutely with- 
out resources. We feel sure that he has 
secreted no property. Everything has 
been lost in speculation. Up to the very 
day he was confined he invested the few 
dollars he had in his pocket on the market. 
We are therefore unable to forward draft 
as requested, and trust that you have 
sufficient funds to meet your immediate 
necessities.” 

She read it at first with too much aston- 
ishment fully to grasp its meaning, and 
then again very slowly, with ashen face. 
“Would you mind coming out with me to 
the park of Beni Mora?” she said. 

He asked no questions but accompanied 
her to the tram. When they had found a 
secluded place she gave him the letter. 
“Read that,” she asked. 

“Of course that will have to be looked 


102 


AROUND THE WORLD 


after sharply,” he said. “I presume you 
have a lawyer in New York. If not I have 
a classmate in an influential firm who will 
be glad to investigate without cost to you.” 

“I am sure it will be hopeless,” she said. 
“My father trusted Mr. Oliver completely, 
always making his purchases of securities 
through him, and appointing him executor 
without bonds. He had the power to 
take everything, and evidently he has 
done it. I don’t care for myself. From 
what you have told me I think I could 
make my living as teacher in a private 
school. But it will be death to my mother 
to think I am not provided for.” 

“Your mother must not know.” 

“How can she but know? We haven’t 
four thousand dollars in the Credit Lyon- 
naise. I had not even included in this 


AROUND THE WORLD 


103 


draft I sent for the fifteen thousand francs 
it will cost us for the automobile.” 

“Have you any debts?” 

“No, we have always paid every bill 
when presented.” 

“You have some money on hand, I 
suppose?” 

“Not five hundred dollars. Nor could 
I sell what little jewelry we have. My 
mother might ask about it.” 

“Your expenses here are very light. 
Your fifteen hundred dollars will last three 
months. We can hardly hope that your 
mother will live that long.” 

Gwendolyn wept silently. 

“I brought with me two letters-of-credit, 
one for a thousand dollars, one for two 
thousand. The last is untouched. Of 
the first I have drawn only two hundred 
dollars. Another hundred will take me 


104 


AROUND THE WORLD 


home. That gives you twenty-seven hun- 
dred dollars, which will carry you through 
a year.” 

‘‘But, Mr. Sabin, you know I couldn’t 
take your money.” 

‘‘My dear Miss Heath, I am not giving 
to to you, I am giving it to your mother. 
I don’t say I would not willingly and glad- 
ly give it to you, but just now it is your 
mother I am thinking of. I could not try 
to make you believe what your mother has 
grown to be to me. All my life could not 
repay her, and this is little more than a 
year’s salary. If you knew what a joy 
it is to me to be able to give her what she 
really needs you would not grudge me the 
delight it is. I could almost exult in your 
calamity because it affords me this privi- 
lege. It makes my money really worth 
having.” 


AROUND THE WORLD 


105 


“But it would be abandoning your trip, 
your vacation.” 

“Some days ago I had a letter from home, 
saying that the man who followed me had 
failed in discipline, and in fact had been 
obliged to resign. The other teachers are 
carrying on the school till they can hear 
from me. They offer if I will cable that 
I will get back by New-year’s to give me 
my salary for the whole year, and con- 
sider the four months a vacation with 
pay.” 

“What a compliment, Mr. Sabin. Why 
didn’t you tell me?” 

“I have not been anxious to emphasize 
the teacher part of my career after what 
you said of my first appearance at Algiers.” 

“How unkind of you to remind me of 
those spiteful and stupid remarks.” 

“There was much truth in them. I 


106 


AROUND THE WORLD 


really did consider it a compliment to 
Algiers that I approved of it.” 

‘‘I wish you knew how much of a com- 
pliment I should think it was to me if you 
really approved of me.” 

He looked at her a moment in serious 
contemplation. “Gwendolyn,” he said, 
“I don’t know that I ought to speak at 
this time when you have so much else to 
think of, but this loss of your fortune makes 
a great difference in my relation to you. 
I never could have married a girl with 
millions, but as a girl with her living to 
make you are in a way in my class, and I 
feel free to let loose the feeling I have re- 
pressed and to say that with all my heart 
and soul and mind and strength I love 
you. If you will marry me I promise you 
there shall never be for me a my: it shall 
be all our.” 


AROUND THE WORLD 


107 


It was a public park and there were no 
physical demonstrations, but as eyes looked 
into eyes there were two happy faces. 

IX 

“And now if we ask your mother’s con- 
sent,” he said, “it will divert her attention 
from any suspicion as to your fortune.” 

The mother took a hand of each of her 
children in her own. “It is the one thing 
I have prayed for,” she said to him. “You 
can’t believe what a difference it has made 
in Gwendolyn to know you. She is a noble 
woman for the right man, and you are the 
right man. I believe you will continue 
to bless each other all your lives.” 

The engagement, followed a week later 
by marriage, was as fatal as the news of 
disaster would have been. It seemed as 
if the mother had felt obliged to live till 
sure of her daughter’s future, and now 
that this was provided for there was no 


108 


AROUND THE WORLD 


reason to linger. She faded rapidly, and 
in a fortnight she had breathed her last. 
It had been her wish that she should be 
buried in the little cemetery by the church, 
and there they laid her. 

After a week Gwendolyn said, “At least 
we can return by France and England, and 
get in something of the trip you proposed.” 

“No,” he said, “I am no longer in the 
mood for travelling. I want to get back 
to my school and my work, which will 
seem so much more worth while now.” 

X 

So they sailed to New York by direct 
steamer. When they reached the village 
everybody asked him, “Did you go around 
the world?” 

“I did not get beyond Africa,” he would 
reply; but to most of them it made him 
seem another Marco Polo. 


The Greenleaf mystery 







THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 

I 

At Pentonvale the weekly teachers meet- 
ing was at four o’clock on Friday afternoon. 
In most schools this would be like piling 
Pelion on Ossa, but the Pentonvale meet- 
ings were not of that kind. There were 
no lessons to recite or texts to discuss. A 
good deal of pedagogy and of psychology 
was taught but only as it was applied to 
the incidents of the week. Gathered at a 
round table in Mr. Greenleaf’s recitation 
room each teacher told not only of her 
failures but of her successes, and the indi- 
vidual instance was made to illustrate a 
general rule. They were very friendly 
meetings; not a teacher could have been 
persuaded to miss one. 

(ill) 


112 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


On Fridays school let out at half past 
three, so that before going to the meeting 
each teacher could round up the week’s 
work in her room, “just as you clear up 
your desk before closing it at night,” Mr. 
Greenleaf said. He particularly impressed 
it upon them that no discords should reach 
over the week-end. If there had been any 
soreness left from matters of discipline 
or of criticism this was a time to heal them, 
as a wise mother always sees that her child 
goes to bed happy. 

So the teachers gathered one by one in 
Mr. Greenleaf’s room, and on a particular 
Friday Miss Townsend, who happened 
to get there first, asked Miss Putnam, who 
arrived second, “Did Mr. Greenleaf bor- 
row money of you today?” 

“Yes,” replied Miss Putnam. “He came 
down an hour ago and asked if I happened 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


113 


to have five or ten dollars I should not use 
till payday, and I gave him the five I had. 
I was sorry not to have more.” 

“I did not happen to have any money 
with me,” said Miss Townsend. “I offer- 
ed to give him a check or to go over to the 
bank, but he said there was not time for 
that. I wonder why he needed it so sud- 
denly. It did not seem a bit like him.” 

Miss Thompson came in, and on inquiry 
she replied that she had lent Mr. Green- 
leaf five dollars; Miss Stearns and Miss 
Phelps had had no money with them ; Miss 
Streeter and Miss Lincoln had lent him 
five dollars each; Miss Palmer had given 
him a twenty-dollar bill she had been fortu- 
nate enough to have in her pocket book, 
and that had apparently proved sufficient 
for he had not asked the other teachers. 

There was much wondering as to what 


114 THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


it could be for. Miss Thompson had seen 
the woman who got the money come in: 
she was a little dried-up creature dressed 
in black with a black lace veil. Miss 
Stearns had heard her voice, not to dis- 
tinguish what she said but noting the dis- 
agreeable tone, demanding something of 
Mr. Greenleaf. Evidently she had brought 
some strong pressure upon him. 

“It is so unlike him to ask a favor,” said 
Miss Motherhead. “He is always doing 
for us, so that we seldom have a chance to 
even up with him. I am glad he did not 
get to me for I have no money left, but I 
should like nothing better than to give 
him a whole month’s salary.” 

“The spirit of this school is so different 
from what I am accustomed to,” remarked 
Miss Oliver, a new teacher here. “In my 
other schools the motto has been ‘grab’: 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


115 


here it is ‘give'. I was brought up in a big 
family where it was each for himself. Once 
I spent Sunday with a classmate where 
every member of the family was thinking 
of the others first. ‘Now I shan't need 
the car today,’ the father began at break- 
fast, but my friend broke in. ‘I knew you 
were going to say that, papa,’ she said, 
‘but you can’t work it on us. You are 
going to use your auto as usual. We have 
our plans all made and they exclude the 
machine entirely.’ There was a lot of 
bantering argument, each insisting on 
yielding to the other, and so it was all the 
time I was there. What struck me was 
that the final results were very much the 
same as though each had been grabbing 
for everything he could get as we did at 
home, but the spirit was so different.” 

‘‘Like the two jews who went into a 


116 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


chop-house for a porter-house steak,” said 
Miss Pinchem. “Abraham carved and 
gave Isaac the back slice. ‘Dot vos not 
right,’ complained Isaac; ‘you give me the 
wrong piece.’ ‘Vot you do if you carve?’ 
asked Abraham. ‘I give you the tender- 
loin.’ ‘Veil I got it, vot’s the matter?’ ’’ 

“That’s all very well where both parties 
are decent,” interposed Miss Marble, 
“but you have heard of the pair of oxen 
where one was willing to do all the work 
and the other was willing he should.” 

“If that greedy spirit is not converted,” 
said Miss Prentice, “the two cease to be 
yoked together. We have had one or 
two teachers in this school since Mr. Green- 
leaf came who have been more willing 
to take than to give, but at the end of the 
year they were not reappointed. Aren’t 
we a happy family now?” And she looked 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


117 


around beamingly upon her fellow-teachers. 
“Sh! Mr. Greenleaf is coming.” 

II 

One teacher had not added her voice 
to the recognition of Mr. Greenleaf’s spirit 
in the school, but it was because she felt 
it more than any of the others. To Ruth 
Tinker Mr. Greenleaf had been more than 
inspiration: he had been salvation. Hers 
had been a lonely, unlovely childhood, 
and her preparation for teaching had in- 
volved privation. Her first principal had 
been a brute, who had bullied her, tyran- 
nized over her, sought to corrupt her and 
continually insulted her with double mean- 
ings and suggestive stories, till at the end 
of the year she not only refused reappoint- 
ment but questioned whether she would 
try again to teach. If men were like him — 
and he was the first man with whom she 


118 THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 

had become well acquainted — she wanted 
nothing more to do with them, least of all 
to be subordinate to them. There was no 
other calling for her and she seriously con- 
templated suicide; she spent night after 
night wondering which method would be 
easiest. 

Finally she went to Mr. Appleton, who 
conducted a teachers agency, and told 
him all this with considerable frankness. 

“I have known that scoundrel’s record 
for some time,” he said with lowering brow 
after she had told him her experience the 
past year. ‘‘He is held there by political 
influence which can not always continue. 
Don’t judge the men principals of New York 
by him. I will put you under a man so dif- 
ferent that you will wonder they can live 
on the same earth.” 

So she had come to Pentondale, and from 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


119 


the moment she presented herself to Mr. 
Greenleaf his deferent, simple, sincere, 
kindly manner had restored her confidence 
not only in mankind but in herself. Life 
became something worth living for, her 
work delightful, her children a joy not 
only in school but in her dreams. Her 
gratitude grew to be a religion. She be- 
lieve in God, but especially as manifested 
in Mr. Greenleaf. 

When she heard these teachers tell of 
lending money to him she felt aggrieved 
that his need had been satisfied before he 
reached her room. She had the habit of 
carrying money, and if he had come to her 
first she could have lent him the entire 
forty dollars and saved him the humiliation 
of asking so many. Why should such a 
man be humiliated? Why should Mr. 
Greenleaf have to give money to a little 


120 THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 

old woman in black? She was sure the 
woman was no relative. Blackmail? That 
was unthinkable for it would imply that 
Mr. Greenleaf had something to conceal. 
The amounts borrowed were repaid at the 
end of the month and the other teachers 
thought no more of the old woman in black, 
but Ruth Tinker’s motherly instincts were 
aroused. Somebody was oppressing the 
best man in all the world and she meant 
to find out who it was. 

Ill 

By putting together bits of information 
that floated about she discovered that ever 
since he had been in Pentondale on the 
day it was received he had sent three- 
fourths of his salary to a V. Grady, Ips- 
wich. Nobody knew who V. Grady was: 
those who speculated about it inferred 
first that it was a college obligation. But 


THE GREENLEAP MYSTERY 


121 


the monthly instalments had been paid 
for more than four years, and had amounted 
to nearly seven thousand dollars besides 
interest. How could Mr. Greenleaf have 
accumulated so large a debt? 

Certainly he lived sparingly. He paid 
only six dollars a week for board, he in- 
dulged in no luxuries, his spring clothes 
were bought in the summer and his fall 
clothes in the spring at bargain sales, he 
never travelled except on business con- 
nected with the school. He always sub- 
scribed when it seemed required, and with 
apparent cheerfulness and payment on 
the spot, but only in the amount that 
seemed fitting, and as some suspected with 
an inward grimace of pain. Why should 
a man getting two thousand dollars a 
year be so pinched ? Others had wondered 
for a while and given it up. Ruth Tinker 


122 THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 

wondered and was determined to discover. 

She had a distant cousin in Ipswich 
whom she did not see often but with whom 
her boy-and-girl recollections were pleasant 
and of whom she did not hesitate to ask 
a favor. He was a criminal lawyer with 
a taste toward detective work. She wrote 
him: 

“My dear Ethan, There is somebody 
in Ipswich named V. Grady who for four 
years has been getting $150 a month from 
Mr. Greenleaf, our principal here, without 
reason that we can discover. I want to 
know who V. Grady is and why this levy 
on Pentonvale is permitted. If it involves 
any reflection on the man that sends it 
don’t tell me. If not, tell me all you can. 
In any case don’t breathe a word about 
it to any one else. 

“You and I have hardly seen one another 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


123 


in fifteen years. The confidence implied 
in this letter is better proof than words 
could be of how I used to trust you. 

“Yours sincerely, 

“Ruth Tinker” 

After a week this letter came back. 

“My dear Ruth, How like you and how 
dear of you. V. Grady is Valeska Grady, 
widow of Ambrose Grady, who must have 
ascended when he died, because he was 
blown up in a railroad explosion some five 
years ago. That was in Nashua, N. H. 
The widow moved here soon after. She 
seems to have a lot of property and is re- 
garded as a close, greedy investor, a harsh 
landlady and lender, living a miser’s lonely, 
suspicious life, apparently without a friend 
or an intimate and especially distrusting 
lawyers. 


124 


THE GREENLEAP MYSTERY 


“I can find no clue to Mr. Greenleaf’s 
monthly payments. He never lived in 
Nashua and nobody there or here has ever 
even heard his name. At Primrose where 
he taught last no one ever heard of such 
payments or of Valeska Grady or found 
anything in his conduct to speculate about. 
If I were you I wouldn’t speculate any 
more. Instead come and visit my wife and 
me and see how children have improved 
since you and I were kids. 

“Your cousin Ethan” 

IV 

Ruth’s further investigations proved 
fruitless and she had almost resigned her- 
self to considering the mystery insoluble 
when at the end of the year she had re- 
mained one afternoon to decorate her 
room and went up to the principal’s office 
where supplies were kept to get her flags 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


125 


and banners. Before she suspected any- 
one else was in the building she heard a 
strident cry, “But I tell you I must have 
the full two hundred dollars!” 

“My dear woman, she heard Mr. Green- 
leaf’s patient voice reply, “you mustn’t 
kill the goose that lays the golden egg. 
To be principal of this school I must make 
a certain appearance. I spend less than 
my primary teachers. This fifty dollars 
is all I have left to keep me till September.” 

Her shrill voice broke in, “No excuses. 
Give me the money. You know you owe 
it to me.” 

As if weary of contending further Mr. 
Greenleaf replied, “Very well; take it.” 
And she could hear the woman’s chuckle. 

Ruth hurried down the stairs to get a 
look at the creature. In the hag’s exulta- 
tion her features were those of the harpy; 


126 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


even her fingers seemed the long claws of 
the repulsive bird. The only peculiarity 
in her attire was some fine lace upon her 
coarse black gown. 

“You know you owe it to me.” How 
could Mr. Greenleaf owe thousands of 
dollars to this hideous person? 

She reflected.. “I have got to pay my 
board this vacation anyway,” she said to 
herself, “and I may as well give the two 
months to solving this mystery.” 

V 

One of the teachers was crossing to 
Antwerp. “Send me a Belgian newspaper 
every day for ten days,” asked Ruth, and 
Miss Thompson promised, taking Ruth’s 
Ipswich address. 

Ruth went first to New York and spent 
a hundred dollars in Mechlin lace. She 
visited her cousin in Ipswich, and when 


THE GREENLEAP MYSTERY 


127 


the first newspaper came from Antwerp 
withdrew it from its cover, put inside one 
of the pieces of Mechlin, and made excuse 
to slip out for the morning. 

She went to Valeska’s address and 
knocked. The woman came to the door 
and would have driven her away but Ruth 
put her finger to her mouth, looked steal- 
thily about, and murmured “Sh!” 

Even a miser is curious about a secret. 
Reluctantly Valeska admitted the woman 
who had something to tell. 

Ruth looked about her to be sure there 
were no observers and then withdrew the 
newspaper from its wrapper. She un- 
folded it and within was an exquisite bit 
of black lace, for which she had paid eigh- 
teen dollars at Lord and Taylor’s. “Five 
dollars,” she whispered softly. 

Valeska took and examined it closely. 


128 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


It was real Mechlin, no question of that, 
a wonderful bargain, smuggled through 
the post as she had seen. 

“One dollar,” she said greedily. 

“Impossible,” replied Ruth. “I saw 
the lace on your gown on the street and I 
was sure you knew its value. I shall have 
more in a day or two.” 

Finally she sold it to Valeska for three 
dollars, promising to bring the next piece 
that came, and went away without ex- 
pressing any other purpose. Each time 
she came Valesak grew more communica- 
tive, and when Ruth betrayed no curiosity 
began to feel rather impelled to talk. On 
the fifth morning Ruth drew out of her 
newspaper the finest piece she had bought 
and seemed determined not to accept less 
than ten dollars. 

“It is the last I shall have,” she said. 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


129 


Valeska took it, locked it away with the 
rest in the bureau drawer, and sat down 
facing her visitor. 

“And my ten dollars?” asked Ruth. 

“You get no ten dollars,” replied Valeska 
with a hideous smile. “You are a smug- 
gler. Suppose I peach on you? You are 
lucky that I don’t lock you up.” 

“You interest me,” replied Ruth, gazing 
at her with admiration. “How well you 
know how to get things. I have no out- 
look like that.” 

Ruth’s yielding the lace, her frank ad- 
miration of the keener criminal, appealed 
to Valeska. What she had hinted at be- 
fore she began to tell. The desire to boast 
is so insidious that it breaks through what 
would seem impenetrable reserve. She 
told of watching foreclosure sales, reselling 
at enormous profit, lending at outrageous 


130 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


per cents but always upon security and 
always collected. 

“Who could imagine such large returns 
upon so small investments?” 

“My largest returns are from no invest- 
ment at all,” chuckled the old woman, 
with a delight unknown in years in thus 
posing as a financier. 

“How can that be possible?” asked Ruth, 
wide-eyed, struggling to conceal her eager- 
ness. 

“I get a hundred and fifty a month from 
a man who never owed me a dollar,” she 
exulted. 

“How did you persuade him to do it?” 

“He persuaded himself. My old man 
was blown up on a railroad. It was a bad 
case, shocking neglect, company wanted 
to keep it quiet, and came to settle before 
the old man died. ‘We hate to have the 


THE GREENLEAP MYSTERY 


131 


lawyers get three-fourths of it,’ the lawyer 
said. ‘Come, here is a thousand dollars/ 
and he took out a thousand-dollar bill to 
make an impression. You should have 
seen my old man’s eyes stick out, but I 
had noticed that when the lawyer took 
out that bill he separated it from some 
others in his vest-pocket : evidently he was 
prepared to pay more. ‘Absolutely out of 
the question,’ I said. So I led him along 
one by one till when he took out the tenth 
one I saw it was the last. I agreed and my 
husband and I signed. How the old man 
hated to die when he saw those ten thou- 
sand-dollar bills.” 

“And what then?” 

“Just then a man named Greenleaf came 
in. He had happened to be in Nashua 
and he heard of the accident, though the 
railroad took pains that the newspapers 


132 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


shouldn’t say much about it. When we 
first came to America I used to do the wash- 
ing for his mother and he remembered the 
name. 

“ ‘How am I to invest all this money?’ 
I asked him. 

“ ‘Put it in the bank the first thing,’ he 
said: ‘don’t keep it here a minute. I will 
stay with your husband till you get back.’ 

“So over to the bank I went, and when 
I came back he advised me to be very care- 
ful, not taking it out to invest it till I was 
very sure the principal would be safe. 
Off he went that night to Boston, and when 
he took up the afternoon paper next day 
what do you suppose he read?’’ 

“I can’t imagine.” 

“The bank he advised me to put my ten 
thousand dollars in was bust up. The 
president had got off that day with all the 


THE GREENLEAP MYSTERY 


133 


cash down to the five-cent pieces, every 
bit of real estate was mortgaged to its full 
value, and all the commercial paper had 
been rediscounted. It was the worst loot 
in New England history.” 

“What did Mr. Greenleaf do?” 

“Came back here by the first train and 
promised to make that ten thousand dollars 
good. He gave me all the money in his 
pocket he had to spare and promised to 
send me a hundred and fifty dollars a 
month till it was all made up.” 

“And did he do it?” 

“He is doing it. It will take a long 
while. You see I reckon interest at six 
per cent compound; besides I nail him 
now and then for an extra.” And Valeska 
rubbed her hands. “How is that for an 
investment ? 


134 


THE GPEENLEAF MYSTERY 


“I have a white man working for me,” 
she hummed. 

Shocking as it was, Ruth felt sure Valeska 
had not explained all her exultation. There 
was something beneath this, and the next 
day she went to Nashua. 

VI 

It was the summer solstice, and never 
was July more superheated. Mr. Green- 
leaf had worked all the week at soliciting 
life insurance, with a result that not only 
had he accomplished nothing but he had 
made it less possible to accomplish any- 
thing. It was not the right work for him. 
He was made to give, not to ask; to have 
the other person’s interest in view, not 
his own. He had lowered himself; he 
might as well have asked alms directly. 

How could he get through the summer? 
His board had not been paid since June, 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


135 


he was ashamed to go for his laundry, he 
could not even take the trolley. He had 
met three men who had pulled him into a 
drug store and each in turn had ordered 
ice-cream soda for the four. He had not 
been able to refuse to drink but he could 
not order in his turn. He was absolutely 
penniless. He might have borrowed, but 
business men would not have lent as un- 
questioningly as had his teachers: they 
would want to know how it happened that 
a man earning two thousand dollars a year 
with only himself to support had not 
money enough to carry him over the sum- 
mer vacation. 

In fact there was murmuring, he knew, 
that he was not spending his salary in 
Pentonvale. The tradespeople complain- 
ed that they were taxed for this two thou- 
sand dollars for the benefit of somebody in 


136 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


Ipswich. Some hints of a scandal develop- 
ed after the second visit of that woman in 
black. Popular as a teacher may be in 
school, blameless as a man, there will 
always be people in the community ready 
to add their mite of information and con- 
jecture to any rumor that may arise. Mr. 
Greenleaf had not exaggerated when he 
warned Valeska that she was killing the 
goose that laid the golden egg. “The 
Greenleaf mystery” had begun to be spoken 
of with a sneer. This soliciting life in- 
surance like a pauper had symptoms of 
being the straw that would break the cam- 
el’s back. 

But even if he held his place the future 
seemed hopeless. Four years he had en- 
dured it, and as the woman reckoned 
interest there would be at least four years 
more. In fact her rapacity was growing. 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 137 


This year she had extorted ninety dollars 
extra ; next year it might be a hundred and 
ninety. He was in a cul de sac. There 
seemed no egress. 

There was a knock. “Come in,” he said, 
thinking it was the landlady, perhaps to 
ask for her board. But it was Ruth Tinker, 
so bright and fresh and beaming that even 
in his troubles it did him good to see her. 
“What happy wind blew you in here?” 
he exclaimed, rising and holding out both 
hands. 

“The same wind brought this,” she said, 
and she handed him a New York draft for 
more than seven thousand dollars. 

“Where did this come from?” he asked 
bewildered. 

“Your old friend Valeska.” 

“And why does she send it back? It 
was to replace money she lost through me.” 


138 THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 

“She never lost any money through 
you.” 

“Through my advice she deposited ten 
thousand dollars in a bank that failed the 
next day.” 

“She never deposited the ten thousand 
dollars. She carried the ten bills to the 
bank, but she brought them back again 
and pinned them inside her chemise.” 

“How did you discover all this?” 

So Ruth told him how she looked up 
the files of Nashua newspapers for the 
period in question, but in the lists of de- 
positors found no mention of Valeska, in 
the losses no exact $10,000. She went 
to the surrogate’s office. She learned 
that Valeska had taken oath that her hus- 
band had left no property, real or personal. 
She went to the railroad to inquire if 
memorandum had been kept of the numbers 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


139 


of the ten thousand-dollar bills, explaining 
why she wished to know, and the lawyer 
who had made the settlement and who 
was still sore over having been worsted by 
Valeska, took pains to look the matter up, 
saying that the bills were on the City bank, 
and that they had all come back to the 
bank in the course of trade with the usual 
promptness. 

At the surrogate’s office she had dis- 
covered that there was another heir, a 
daughter by a former marriage, who had 
gone to Montana as a domestic, had mar- 
ried there, and was now visiting in Ipswich 
with her husband, a hustling lawyer. Ruth 
called upon her and learned that she knew 
of her father’s death only because a Christ- 
mas letter with a ten-dollar bill had been 
opened by Valeska, the money kept, and 
the letter returned with the bare informa- 


140 THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 

tion that her father had died. She had 
not been interested in calling on her step- 
mother, of whom she had no pleasant 
recollections. 

The husband came in and was put in 
possession of the facts and of Ruth’s sur- 
mises . “ This is the time to put up a bluff , ’ ’ 

he said: and he got out a summons in the 
United States court, claiming his wife’s 
share of the ten thousand dollars with 
interest, and another for the amount ex- 
torted from Mr. Greenleaf through false 
pretences. 

He was a big, fierce-looking man, and 
when the lawyer intimated that if the 
amounts due were paid on the spot possibly 
court proceedings could be stopped she 
jumped at the chance. She gave checks 
and security for the entire amount and 


THE GREENLEAF MYSTERY 


141 


when they were realized upon the civil 
action was dropped. 

But the western lawyer was a relentless 
man. He brought criminal action against 
Valeska for perjury and for theft, and she 
was in jail awaiting her trial. 

“Poor Valeska,” sighed Mr. Greenleaf. 

“You are incorrigible,” cried Ruth. 
“But what would the world be if there were 
more men like you?” 

The world may know, for Ruth is now 
Mrs. Greenleaf. 







































The president exagger- 
ated 






THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 


I 

“Is this Principal Gross?” 

“Yes. And you — ?” 

“I am Mr. Wise, the district superin- 
tendent.” 

“What a joke that office is, isn’t it?” 

“Is it?” 

“I should say so. In Worcester county 
where I taught last year they offered it 
to me in two different districts, but I 
wouldn’t even consider it.” 

“Salary?” 

“No; in one of them they offered to in- 
crease that five hundred.” 

“Who offered?” 

“The directors.” 


( 145 ) 


146 THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 

“But only the supervisors can increase 
the salary.” 

“I know. They got the supervisors to 
guarantee to do it.” 

“But the supervisors were not elected 
at that time. Nobody knew in the sum- 
mer who they would be.” 

“In Worcester county they always re- 
elect: there hasn’t been a change in seven 
years except from death.” 

“But didn’t it get them into trouble, to 
guarantee an advance of five hundred 
dollars in only one of the four districts?” 

“It was a little delicate, but you see they 
particularly wanted me . ’ ’ 

“Yet you wouldn’t run?” 

“No, the office is too indefinite, too ir- 
responsible. Nominally you inspect my 
school : practically you wouldn’t dare make 
a suggestion.” 


THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 147 


“Why not?” 

“Because the high school principal must 
be a scholarly man, usually a college grad- 
uate. Most of you district superintendents 
are rural school teachers at six hundred 
dollars a year who have passed an exami- 
nation in agriculture.” 

“You are a college graduate, I suppose?” 

“Why, practically. I haven’t my degree 
but I have done about the same amount 
of work privately.” 

“Why were they so set on having you 
for superintendent?” 

“0 1 had my school there in the hollow 
of my hand and they wanted me to show 
the other schools how to do it.” 

“Which party offered to nominate you?” 

“The republicans in one district; both 
the republicans and the democrats in the 
other.” 


148 THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 

“But you wouldn’t run at all?” 

“No, indeed. Some unauthorized per- 
son put up my name in both districts but 
my friends knew I would not serve and did 
not vote for me.” 

II 

“Yet you did not remain in your school.” 

“No, I positively refused to stay. ‘I 
have done all I can for you,’ I told the 
board of education, ‘and it is only fair that 
I should go to some other school and give 
them the benefit of my experience.’ So 
I came here.” 

“It must have been a hard blow to them.” 

“It was. The president of the board 
asked me to run over occasionally and see 
how things were getting on.” 

“Been over yet?” 

“No. I thought it would be too much 
like glorifying myself. Besides, it wasn’t 


THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 149 


giving the new man a fair chance to have 
the children contrast us before he was 
thoroughly established.” 

“Do they give him as much authority 
as they did you?” 

“I should say not. Why the board 
offered if I would stay to turn the entire 
school funds over to me and let me hire 
the teachers and janitor, make the pur- 
chases, and send in my bill at the close of 
the year, which they would present as 
their report.” 

“A tempting offer, but hardly legal.” 

“They didn’t care so long as they got 
results ; but I refused : I wanted a change of 
environment. The school ran too easily: 
it didn’t give me any new problems. I 
don’t want a rocking-horse: I want an 
untamed steed that must be conquered 
and trained.” 


150 THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 

“I should hardly call this school an un- 
tamed steed. I haven’t heard of any 
trouble here in twenty years.” 

“Why? Because it has been asleep. 
I shouldn’t dare tell you in what a con- 
dition I found everything.” 

“It has been supposed to stand pretty 
well.” 

“Mere veneer. Underneath it is rotten. 
It will take me ten years to get my stan- 
dards established here.” 

“What are some of your standards?” 

“First, to be unquestionably at the top. 
Nobody in Worcester county hesitated 
when asked which was the best school there 
to point to mine. One of the Regents 
inspectors told me he used my school as 
a gauge to measure others by, and when 
he came to one that could be marked 75% 
as high as mine he marked it 100%, because 


THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 151 


that was all that could be humanly ex- 
pected.” 

Ill 

“I wonder they have not made you an 
inspector.” 

“Sh-sh! The place was offered to me 
but I declined.” 

“Who offered it?” 

“One of the assistant commissioners.” 

“Which one?” 

“I am not at liberty to tell. I helped 
him a good deal in getting out the Syllabus 
and our relations are sacred.” 

“What part of the Syllabus did you 
write?” 

“It wouldn’t be fair to tell. The assis- 
tant commissioner read the proofs of it, 
of course, and made some suggestions, so 
it is all right for him to claim the author- 
ship. In fact I never care to have my 


152 THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 

agency in anything appear. The syllabus 
suits me as it is. What does it matter 
whom people suppose to be the author?” 

“But why did you turn down the in- 
spectorship?” 

“I couldn’t stand the nervous strain. 
I should go from school to school and see 
everything going wrong and it would wear 
on me. I prefer to stay in my own school, 
where things go right.” 

“But think of your duty to the school 
system.” 

“I know; I often reproach myself. But 
there are limits to what any one man can 
do, and I am saving myself for the great 
things.” 

“At least you might write books to show 
others how to teach.” 

“Sh-sh! What series of arithmetics is 


used most in the state?” 


THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 153 


“Milroe’s, probably.” 

“Milroe is principal of a normal school. 
What time do you suppose he has to write 
arithmetics?” 

‘‘Who does write them?” 

‘‘That is a dead secret, but you can do 
your own guessing.” 

“You must be paid pretty well for it.” 

“Not so very. He gets ten per cent and 
gives me only three. It wasn’t much more 
than my salary last year, but the books 
are picking up.” 

IV 

“I suppose you are prominent in teach- 
ers associations.” 

“O yes. You know there is always a 
little clique that manages things. The 
members think they elect the officers and 
pass the resolutions, but as a matter of 
fact it is all cut and dried. Three or four 


154 THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 


of us settle in advance what shall be done 
in the State and the County associations.” 

“Are you an officer in either?” 

“Goodness no: I am not a gun, I am the 
man behind the gun. Did you ever see 
a Punch and Judy show?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, we three or four that are on the 
inside handle the officers of the associa- 
tion just as the man underneath handles 
his marionettes. You don’t see him get- 
ting up on the stage and exhibiting him- 
self. That would spoil his show.” 

“Whom are you going to have for presi- 
dent of the State association this year?” 

“Sh-sh! It wouldn’t do to tell, but it 
is all fixed.” 

“Then I suppose you will want to run 
my teachers conferences the same way.” 

“O no. Your conferences are too small 


THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 155 


game. I doubt if I take up even the 
County association here. I am going to 
the National next year and that and the 
State association, with the University 
convocation and the Principals conference 
will be all I can take care of.” 

V 

“You must be a hard worker.” 

“Yes, but I play just as hard. I held 
the golf and tennis championships in the 
county, and I have never yet been beaten 
at checkers. One day I was waiting for 
a train in New York and I went into a 
billiard room to pass away an hour. I 
asked a man who was practising if he 
wanted to play a game of three-cushions 
and he said he did. I noticed that the 
players all over the room began to desert 
their tables and look on, but I did not think 
much about it. I was handling my cue 


156 THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 


in good form, and when I got my fifty 
points he had only seventeen. I thanked 
him for amusing me and started for the 
train. The barkeeper asked me if I knew 
whom I had been playing with. I said 
no, and he told me it was De Oro, the 
champion.” 

“That was going some. What sort of 
a looking fellow is he?” 

“A Spaniard, tall, slim, dark, black 
eyes, very black beard.” 

“He probably thought he was picking 
up a sucker.” 

“Yes, it made a good deal of stir. The 
barkeeper wanted to get my address and 
very likely would have tried to make me 
a professional, but I told him games with 
me were only a relaxation : I couldn’t make 
a business out of them.” 


THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 157 


VI 

“Are you a married man?” 

“No. May be I should have been if 
some girls would have let me do the court- 
ing. When there is any hugging or kissing 
to be done I want to take the initiative.” 

“Then the girls have pursued you?” 

“Don’t they pursue every man? They 
have heard that love comes from propin- 
quity, and they propinquit too close.” 

“Here in school, for instance?” 

“No, I have shut straight down upon 
it here. I have as many broken hearts 
on my calendar already as I want to be 
responsible for.” 

“Did you find it difficult to discourage 
the teachers here?” 

“O they have hung around me, as teach- 
ers always do around a principal, and made 
excuses to get my help after school when 


158 THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 

the rest were all gone, and so on, but I 
have been firm with them and kept them 
at arms length.” 

“It must be a burden to be so fascinat- 
ing/’ 

“It isn’t that I am so good-looking, but 
women like a masterful man.” 

“And so they follow you about?” 

“Yes, that’s one reason why I have not 
married. If a girl goes wild over me now 
it is between her and me; if I had a wife 
it would be the eternal trio again.” 

“It is well to be so conscientious. But 
some day you will succumb, I suppose.” 

“Not except for a rare combination: 
beauty, money, wit, family — all those 
anyhow.” 

“And what do you offer?” 

“That is for the girl to say. There have 


THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 159 


been those who thought it was consider- 
able.” 

VII 

“I think I will call on some of the mem- 
bers of the board.” 

“Do you know our president?” 

“Yes. Greatly given to exaggeration, 
isn’t he?” 

“Yes, indeed. I wonder you noticed 
it without more acquaintance. For my 
part I have always held that the exact 
truth is in itself more forcible than any 
enlargement. I hate a man who exag- 
gerates.” 

“He certainly does. When he sent for 
me to come here and annul your certi- 
ficate he said that you would tell two 
hundred lies an hour. Now I see by my 
watch that we have been talking twenty- 
eight minutes, and by my pocket comp- 


160 THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 

tometer that you have told only sixty-one 
lies, which is at the rate of only one hun- 
dred and thirty to the hour. He exag- 
gerated more than fifty per cent. It is 
unpardonable.” 

“Of course you don’t really mean to say 
that was what you came here for?” 

“Precisely. And I don’t think I came 
any too soon.” 

“But of course you won’t do it.” 

“I do it at this instant. There is notice 
of annulment which I hereby sign. I 
shall report it to the Regents tonight.” 

“You can’t annul my certificate without 
notice and trial.” 

“O yes I can, when the offence is under 
my own observation and so flagrant. You 
are no longer a teacher.” 

“But think of taking away my occupa- 


THE PRESIDENT EXAGGERATED 161 


tion; at my age I am too old to learn to 
do anything else.” 

“My business is to think of the children 
in this school and the example you are 
setting them. I am glad I can end it on 
the instant.” 

“But do you want me to starve?” 

“Why not live on your copyright on 
Milroe’s arithmetic or go to New York 
and play exhibition billiards with De 
Oro?” 

“But—” 


“Good day, Mr. Gross.” 


I 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


I 

“Do you suppose you can find me a 
place to teach?” 

Mr. Appleton had looked at the black- 
bordered card and knew her story : orphaned 
daughter of a lawyer who had lavished 
care and opportunity and expense upon 
her, but who had died suddenly, in debt, 
without having even maintained his life 
insurance. She was a hot-house flower; 
how would she bear the cold blasts of the 
outside world? 

“You were educated in Syracuse, I be- 
lieve, Miss Keats?” 

“Yes, Mr. Appleton. After my mother’s 
death” (the tears welled into her eyes) 
( 165 ) 


166 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


“my father made me his almost constant 
companion and could not bear to have me 
go away from home. I was never before 
so far away as this without him.” 

“High school and university?” 

“The Goodyear school first; then the 
university.” 

* ‘ Classical course ? ’ ’ 

“Yes, Mr. Appleton.” 

“French and German?” 

“Both, but especially French. The 
Miss Goodyears are said to have an accent 
not to be distinguished in Paris.” 

“Music?” 

“I sing only fairly, but on the piano 
Prof. Held considered me one of his best 
pupils.” 

“Drawing?” 

“After I was graduated I took work in 
the art college for two years.” 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


167 


An assistant who had been listening and 
selecting vacancy cards that fitted the ap- 
plicant’s preparation handed them to Mr. 
Appleton. He looked them over doubt- 
fully, communing with himself. 

“Aramton, Mr. Litton. Good man but 
ill-bred; he would tread on all her finer 
sensibilities and never know it. 

“Butterville, Mr. Provost. Too much 
of a driver. She would not defend herself 
and would break down. 

“Carlow Centre, Mr. Slick. Smooth, 
affable; seems to get on pretty well, but 
I never trusted him. 

“Beresford, Mr. Seaver. Not a bad 
fellow, but too crude; hasn’t learned how 
to teach himself, and would start her 
wrong.’’ 

He tossed the cards aside, and asked, 
“Is your need immediate, Miss Keats?’’ 


168 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


“I am afraid it is, Mr. Appleton; I have- 
n’t fifty dollars in the world. I suppose 
it is difficult to place an untried teacher.” 

“O no, I could send you immediately 
to any one of those four places, but they 
do not seem quite to fit.” Turning to an 
assistant, “Let me have that letter from 
Falmouth that came this morning.” 

He read it over carefully, glancing oc- 
casionally at the applicant. Then he 
asked, “How were you in algebra?” 

“I took only what was prescribed in 
school and college, but I liked it.” 

“You would feel qualified to teach ele- 
mentary algebra in a high school?” 

“So far as subject-matter is concerned, 
yes, Mr. Appleton.” 

“I have a place here that does not cor- 
respond with your special preparation and 
offers a lower salary than these others 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


169 


but which is better than the others per- 
sonally. It is in Falmouth, for an addi- 
tional teacher, the school having opened 
with more new pupils than expected. The 
definite class is one of forty beginning 
algebra. The rest of the work will be 
light and mainly to help out in a variety 
of subjects. The salary is five hundred 
dollars; board four dollars a week. The 
advantage is that the school is an excellent 
one, under a superior principal, helpful 
to his teachers, so that what you learn of 
teaching there you will learn on correct 
lines ; it will be almost as good for you pro- 
fessionally as a normal school.” 

“I shall be most happy to go there if 
you feel justified in sending me.” 

“I think you are just the one I want to 
send. I am authorized to make engage- 
ment with you and you may begin on Mon- 


170 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


day. While you fill this blank I will write 
a letter to the principal.” 

II 

The letter did not take him long, but 
while Miss Keats was writing, he meditat- 
ed. When she came back to his desk he said. 

“Miss Keats, this is your first venture 
alone out into the world, isn’t it?” 

“Indeed it is,” she replied, her eyes 
filling again. “I have always been so 
sheltered.” 

“I should judge that you have met only 
people who liked you and whom you could 
trust.” 

“Yes, Mr. Appleton, every one has been 
kind to me.” 

“The world as a whole is pretty kind to 
those who meet it in a friendly spirit, yet 
a girl who is making her first venture into 
it alone needs some counsel. I wonder if 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


171 


you will allow me, as a man of a good deal 
of experience, with daughters older than 
you are, to give you some hints.” 

“I should be most grateful to you, Mr. 
Appleton.” 

“I am going to speak plainly. You are 
the sort of woman who especially attracts 
men. You are feminine to your finger 
tips; you appeal to the instinct of protec- 
tion. I venture to say you would not 
have to stand even in a Broadway street 
car. Your principal, the members of your 
board of education, the moment they see 
you will begin to plan how they may make 
things easy for you. 

“So far, this is an advantage. What I 
an going to say is to warn you against a 
danger. You will think that I am pre- 
sumptuous, meddlesome, absurd; and I 
hope that in your experience it may prove 


172 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


so, and yet I think it ought to be said.” 

“You may be sure I shall appreciate it, 
Mr. Appleton.” 

“This impulse of protection which your 
appearance inspires leads also to the im- 
pulse of affection and to the expression of 
affection.” 

Miss Keats flushed. “I hope I may be 
trusted to know what conduct is becom- 
ing,” she protested. 

“I am not speaking of bad men,” Mr. 
Appleton continued; “the proportion of 
bad men is not large among those you are 
likely to meet, and you would be protected 
against them by your own instinct. I am 
speaking of good men, really eager to help 
you, feeling a genuine and generous affec- 
tion for you, but inclined to give that affec- 
tion an expression which it is maidenly to 
escape. 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


173 


“There are communities brought up on 
kissing-games, where it is a custom for 
even strangers to caress; there are in cities 
sets of people supposed to be well-bred 
who are free in pawing one another. My 
daughter came home from a young peo- 
ple’s party once and said she felt as if she 
and the friend who invited her were the 
only ones there who had not been handled.” 

Miss Keats shuddered. 

“You shrink from even the thought of 
this, but you may be placed where a man 
whom you recognize as kind and helpful 
and unconscious of offence, will seek to be 
familiar with you, to put his arm about 
you, perhaps to kiss you. I understand 
your incredulity, your indignation, but 
I am speaking from experience. If such 
a time comes, I want you to remember 
this word of warning: don’t permit it. 


174 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


Even if you must seem rude, be decisive 
in protecting these outskirts of your maiden- 
hood. Your friend may be hurt, even 
indignant at the time, but if he is really 
your friend he will in the end be the more 
your friend.” 

Miss Keats had not been able wholly 
to conceal her impatience, but she realized 
that Mr. Appleton had meant well, so she 
promised him and thanked him. 

“Let me add,” he continued, “that in 
saying this I am not warning you against 
the principal of the school to which you 
are to go. I am sending you to him mainly 
because I know him to be an upright and 
trustworthy man, entirely above taking 
any advantage of his teachers. But the 
rule of conduct I suggested is universal; 
it applies to all men.” 

Miss Keats thanked him again, but 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


175 


went out somewhat disturbed, as though 
she had needlessly been compelled to con- 
template something disagreeable. 

Ill 

Falmouth, N. Y., Oct. 10, 1896 
Dear Mr. Appleton. 

I enclose check for commission, and 
want to express my gratitude to you for 
placing me so satisfactorily. Everybody 
has tried to make things pleasant for me. 
The school is a delightful one, under such 
good discipline that even my big algebra 
class of beginners behave like — no, not 
like angels, but like the best kind of healthy 
boys and girls, and we are getting on finely. 

As for Mr. Emmons, nobody could be 
kinder or more considerate. I have to 
smile when I think of your warning; he 
has never even shaken hands. 

Yours sincerely, 

Amabel Keats 


176 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


IV 

“Regents examination next month, Miss 
Keats. Do you think your algebra class 
will be ready?” 

“I think so, Mr. Emmons, they are 
doing admirably in recitation.” 

“Suppose you give them a preliminary 
trial, a regular regents examination from 
some former paper.” 

“I have given them a good many algebra 
questions from a book of problems.” 

“But those are isolated questions and 
not much of a preparation. I have found 
it wiser to give my classes a real advance 
examination, with all the questions given 
by the regents at some examination, in 
the same order and with the same credits. 
I will send you down forty copies of a book 
containing the uniform questions in alge- 
bra for ten years. Select any one of these 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


177 


examinations, distribute the books as you 
would the opened questions at an examina- 
tion, use the same regents paper, and mark 
on the same basis. Then see how your 
pupils come out.” 

“Just as you like Mr. Emmons. Sup- 
pose we try it this afternoon.” 

V 

Miss Keats was sobbing. She had tried 
the examination, had dismissed her class, 
and for better light had seated herself at 
a double desk in the rear of the room to 
look them over. She was heartbroken. 
There was not a paper in the forty that 
she could mark up to fifty per cent. Two 
of the questions involved compound frac- 
tions. Manifestly not a pupil in the class 
understood compound fractions. And yet 
how carefully she had explained it — clear 
the numerator, clear the denominator 


178 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


and invert it, multiply: she had corrected 
so many problems for them on the board. 

That was it : she had corrected the prob- 
lems for them. Why had she not made 
them correct the problems themselves ? 
It would have taken longer, but she would 
have made sure that somebody in the 
class knew how. How ignorant she was 
of teaching. Why did she not learn how 
before she began? Why should these 
children’s eyes be part of the bushel she 
must spoil while she was learning how to 
train them? 

Well, she had learned her unfitness and 
she must resign. She would be ashamed 
to draw this last month’s pay. What a 
wretched, useless, hopeless creature she 
was, fit only to bask under the sunshine 
of her father’s protection, and now that 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


179 


this was withdrawn only a frost-bitten 
weed. 

VI 

“Why, Miss Keats, what are all these 
tears about?” 

It was the cheerful voice of Mr. Emmons, 
who seated himself beside her. 

“Disappointed in your papers? And 
you thought you were the only one? All 
of us have been through that experience. 
During the term we are measuring what 
we tell the class, and then comes exami- 
nation and the little end of the horn — what 
they can tell us back.” 

But Miss Keats only wept the more 
sorely. “These are so awful — awful!” 
she sobbed. 

“0 come, let’s look,” said Mr. Emmons, 
assorting them by names. “Let’s try one 
of the best. Here is Urania Keep’s; she 


180 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


is a good scholar, careful and accurate. 
Let’s see what she has done.” 

“Her own mother couldn’t mark her 
paper forty per cent.” 

“Let’s see. Um — m — m. At any rate 
her operations are correct; there are no 
mistakes in multiplication or division, in 
coefficients or in exponents. She seems a 
little uncertain in compound fractions; I 
don’t quite see what her theory is there. 
Here is another one; funny, she does not 
grasp the principle. Otherwise her work 
is not bad. Miss Keats, if you can make 
compound fractions clear to her by regen ts 
examination, she will pass.” 

“But she is only one, and the best one.” 

“Now let’s try Ada Ravenel’s; hers will 
probably be the worst; her mother cares 
more to have her invited to every party 
than to have her get her lessons. Here 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


181 


it is. Well, it isn’t very creditable, but 
her worst mistakes are in compound frac- 
tions ; that is encouraging because it points 
out a place that is weaker than the rest. 
The hopeless cases are where everything 
is equally weak. 

“Now take a fair average paper. Aaron 
Joy’s. He is a good, sound, sensible boy, 
with only rural school preparation and not 
quick to apprehend, but trying hard. 
Compound fractions, again; he would 
have passed if he had known that as well 
as he knew the rest. Miss Keats, you are 
all right; you have time enough between 
now and regents to put your class into 
fair trim, and I will help you.” 

“But I have had four months and I have 
done so little with them,” she still sobbed. 
“You could get them ready, of course, 
but I am not hired to have you do my work. 


182 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


I am a poor, miserable, hopeless failure.” 

She was really in despair, and as he 
continued to comfort her Mr. Emmons 
put his arm about her. 

After all Mr. Appleton had been right: 
even Mr. Emmons was taking advantage 
of her sorrow. Gently she unclasped his 
fingers and withdrew the hand from behind 
her. He did not give evidence of noticing 
it, but continued to look over the papers 
and comment on them encouragingly, 
there was no break in his voice or change 
in his tone, but she knew that he was deeply 
offended. He gave her the help she needed 
then and afterward, she profited by his 
suggestions, and in January her class did 
itself credit ; even Ada Ravenel was marked 
sixty. But from that day on Mr. Em- 
mons, though as kind and considerate and 
watchful for her as before, took pains 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


183 


never to be with her except when others 
were present, and never to make a remark 
to her that did not pertain to her school 
duties. 

VII 

She felt herself so ungrateful to have 
grieved him that she longed to apologize. 
But he gave her no opportunity. In every- 
thing else his care and kindness were con- 
stant, but she saw that he wanted no ex- 
planation. He would give her everything, 
he would accept from her nothing. 

Otherwise the last half of the year was 
delightful. Her hard lesson once learned 
that it was her class must do the talking 
she was patient in eliciting the explana- 
tions and corrections from the pupils, and 
when the June examination came thirty- 
four of her forty passed. 

The next day a long white envelope 


184 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


came to her, with a contract in duplicate 
for the following year, at an advance of 
fifty dollars. She knew this like all the 
rest came through Mr. Emmons, and she 
resolved not to accept it unless she could 
make her peace with him. She could not 
see him alone at the schoolhouse; so she 
went to his home, before he could have 
finished supper, determined that he should 
know her contrition. 

How absurd it had been. Why could 
not Mr. Appleton have withheld his 
motherly advice? A good girl’s instincts 
are sufficient. She knew that clasp about 
her waist was a father’s impulse, the at- 
tempt to comfort an orphaned girl. She 
had wilfully insulted the best friend she 
had in the world. 

Mrs. Emmons came to the door. “We 
are not through supper yet,” she exclaimed 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


185 


cordially; “come right in and sit down 
with us.” 

But she saw that Amabel was agitated 
and accepted her excuses. 

VIII 

When Mr. Emmons came into the par- 
lor he brought his wife with him. It made 
it harder, but Amabel had expected that; 
he would never see her alone. 

“My contract came this afternoon,” 
she said, “and I felt that I must see you 
personally. I cannot come back another 
year unless the cloud between us is re- 
moved.” 

“Alicia,” said Mr. Emmons to his wife, 
“let Miss Keats tell her story and then I 
will tell mine. You shall be the judge 
between us.” 

“Mrs. Emmons,” said Amabel, “I came 
here last September not only an untrained 


186 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


teacher but a girl who had never done 
anything for herself and had everything to 
learn. I had been accustomed to kindness, 
for my father had been my friend and my 
companion, but I had never dreamed that 
any one else could be so watchful and 
farseeing and helpful as your husband; if 
I had been his own daughter he could not 
have done more for me. 

“I was going wrong in the class-room, 
talking to my pupils instead of getting 
them to talk to me. He saw it and sug- 
gested a trial examination. The results 
were incredibly bad and I was in despair. 
I wanted to resign; I did not think I could 
honestly take my last month’s pay. 

“Your husband sat down beside me and 
encouraged and comforted me. He looked 
over the papers, said they were not hope- 
less, showed me there was time to recover 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


187 


our footing before the examination. I was 
still in despair because in four months I 
had done so little, and then as I sobbed 
he put his arm about my waist. 

“It was a father’s caress; I knew it; 
but before I came here I had made a rigid 
resolve never to permit it, and I unclasped 
his arm. It was priggish, rude, ungrateful, 
absurd. He did not show that he noticed 
it, he has been even kinder than before; 
but though he has known all these months 
I wanted to apologize he has never given 
me opportunity. So I have forced my way 
here to beg him to forgive me.” 

“Well, Jonathan, what have you to 
say?” asked Mrs. Emmons. 

“This girl came to me last September, 
manifestly a hot-house plant, sheltered 
all her life by a watchful father’s care, 
trustful, eager, charming, a delight to us 


188 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


all. She needed one caution that all 
young teachers must heed, and I suggested 
an examination. The results were on the 
whole better than could have been expected, 
but they made her desperate. I gave her 
the encouragement she needed and was 
entitled to, and when she still refused to 
be comforted I put my arm about her 
waist. I have done it to other teachers 
under like circumstances ; I probably should 
have done it to other teachers again. But 
gently, yielding to a sense of what was 
fitting but reluctant to seem to disapprove, 
she removed my arm from about her. 

“I had been teaching her something ? 
but she taught me a great deal more. Sup- 
pose the janitor or some teacher or pupil 
had suddenly opened the door and seen 
me in a closed room with my arm about 
a young girl’s waist, what might they not 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


189 


have reported? 1 saw that it was not a 
question of motive. The teacher has a 
right to expect that the principal shall 
guard her against the possibility of mis- 
construction. ‘Jonathan Emmons,’ I said 
to myself, ‘so long as you teach school 
never again shall you lay a finger upon a 
teacher’s person, never again shall you be 
in a closed room alone with teacher or girl 
pupil, never again shall you place a teacher 
or a pupil in such a situation that her worst 
enemy could see the possibility of wrong. 
The teacher must be like Caesar’s wife 
above suspicion.’ 

“That I owe to Miss Keats, and it is 
worth more than all I have done for her.” 

“But why have you kept her at a dis- 
tance all the year?” 

“It was expiation. She has been a con- 
stant delight. She was a hot-house flower, 


190 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


but without losing her rare delicacy she 
has gained strength and fragrance; she is 
the light of the school. But I said to my- 
self, ‘In punishment for your crudeness, 
Jonathan Emmons, all this year you shall 
deny yourself the pleasure of her com- 
panionship, and then you shall apologize 
most humbly.’ The year has passed. 
Will you forgive me, Miss Keats?” 

“Wait,” said Mrs. Emmons; “I am the 
judge and it is I who must pronounce the 
verdict.” 

She drew the girl to her and kissed her 
on both cheeks. 

“I can manifest my affection,” she said, 
“and husband and wife are one.” 

IX 

“Looking for another place next year, 
Miss Keats?” asked Mr. Appleton. 

“No, indeed; I wouldn’t change to any 


A HOT-HOUSE FLOWER 


191 


other school in the country. Do you re- 
member the special advice you gave me?” 

“Yes. I hope it was not needed.” 

“It was not necessary; Mr. Emmons is 
the best man except my father I ever 
knew. But I came in to say I am glad 
you gave it.” 







/ 






























The stolen regents paper 


r 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 


I 

“Go to the movies this week, Stedman?” 

“ ‘The unwelcome Mrs. Hatch’, where 
Henrietta Crosman makes such display 
of her big hands?’’ 

“Yes. Beastly play. Think of a cad 
out of revenge persuading a woman to 
leave her husband and then pushing her 
out of his door: a Comanche Indian 
wouldn’t do that. But there was one in- 
teresting feature, where Lorimer and his 
two wives change before your eyes from 
twenty-five to forty-five. How their faces 
harden.” 

“Not all faces harden as they grow older. 
I heard Alba Longstreet say last week, 
( 195 ) 


196 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

pointing to your portrait in the Sunday 
school, ‘The kindness looks right out of 
his eyes.’ ” 

“The little dear. But I was thinking 
of your face. You are forty-five years 
old, but every year its lines grow kindlier.” 

“Why not, Doctor? Every year I grow 
happier. Few have been so blessed as I.” 

“Yet the death of your wife must have 
shaken you.” 

“It was such a blow as even you with 
your big heart can not realize. Not only 
did I lose the one woman to me in all the 
world but the baby she left in my arms 
seemed such an impossible responsibility. 
To think of me, always clumsy, with fingers 
all thumbs, bringing up a motherless 
child.” 

“You certainly succeeded, old fellow. 
Edgar is the finest boy in the village.” 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 197 


“He was a good child from the first, 
and even as a little toddler his finger was 
companionship. When he began to speak 
he amazed me. I never talked down to 
children: I have always thought myself 
lucky if I could talk up to them. But 
Edgar filled me with awe. Where do these 
mites of humanity get their imaginings? 
Often I have mused for days over a remark 
he forgot the next moment.” 

“There are great surprises for those who 
take children seriously and make it worth 
while for children to take them so.” 

“I can hardly remember when Edgar 
first began to seem to me a real companion, 
on the level, so to speak. Do you recall 
when your eldest child, whom you had 
directed from infancy and were expecting 
still to direct absolutely, first interposed 
modestly, ‘But, father, wouldn’t it be 


198 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

better to do so and so?’ and to your amaze- 
ment you saw she was right?” 

“Yes, indeed. What a shock it was, 
but what a delight.” 

“Exactly. It came early with Edgar. 
Some way he seemed to have no idle words 
or thoughts. They all meant something 
and I tried to be an intelligent interpreter. 
So when he was still in skirts we talked by 
the hour, he groping for all the knowledge 
about him, and I trying to see how this 
big world was impressing his little soul.” 

“The man who could put a child’s real 
thoughts on paper could write a book 
everybody would read.” 

“Yes, but I could not look on my boy’s 
inmost thoughts as material for a book; 
they were too sacred. Long ago I found 
that his instinct was often truer than mine, 
and his view of life higher. We mistake 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 199 

so in trying to make our children copies of 
us. Often I have longed myself to copy 
Edgar’s simplicity and directness and can- 
dor. Don’t you wish you could look into 
a stranger's eyes as directly and uncon- 
sciously as a little child looks?” 

“Even Edgar has lost that now to some 
extent, of course.” 

“O yes, but his eyes still have the cour- 
age of nothing to conceal.” 

“I can understand that. He is such a 
straight-forward, manly boy.” 

“He has always been truthful. I do 
not know that he has ever told me a lie. 
Of course he indulged in the imaginative 
tales of childhood, but he never denied a 
wrong action, or varied the details of an 
occurrence. I trust his word as absolutely 
as the rising of the sun.” 


“He goes to college, I suppose.” 


200 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

“O yes, to Yale. I have saved for that 
from the beginning, and he enters in Sep- 
tember.” 

II 

‘‘He must have been quite an expense 
to you.” 

‘‘Not so much as you would think. 
From the time he was two years old he has 
had a weekly allowance, first for sweet- 
meats, then for little purchases, finally for 
everything. He has bought his own clothes 
since he was twelve.” 

“He is always well dressed.” 

“Yes, I sometimes wonder how he does 
so much on so little, but he takes good care 
of every garment, and sees that it is always 
well folded and well brushed.” 

“He seems to have enough to spend.” 

“For anything that is required, like sub- 
scriptions, but he is really economical, 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 201 


pays cash, and keeps a bank balance.” 

“That is unusual in a boy of eighteen.” 

“It is part of my plan in bringing him 
up. But he is naturally frugal and has 
good business sense.” 

“Stedman, don’t you think our young 
people are spending too much? My 
daughters are really becoming a drain on 
my modest salary. There has been a 
difference since the Broughtons moved 
in. Coming here they ought to have 
adapted their city habits to our village 
customs. Instead they are making us 
villagers ape city manners and attire and 
expense.” 

“There is something in that, Doctor. 
Take the matter of dressing for dinner. 
In the city after a hard day’s work it is a 
rest for a man to get into evening clothes, 
but here in the country we have had sup- 


202 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

per at night and eaten it in the clothes we 
have been playing in. In come the Brough- 
tons, and when they invite us to dinner 
Mr. Broughton and his son enter the room 
with swallow-tails on. Of course it makes 
us feel awkward that evening and the 
next time we go there we want to put on 
spike-tails ourselves . ’ * 

“That isn’t the worst of it. We have 
our evening clothes and all it costs us is 
the trouble of getting into them, but the 
boys have to buy them and can’t afford it, 
while our girls are led into all sorts of ex- 
travagances.” 

“There is much truth in what you say. 
We have fortunately been able through 
the school and the mothers to make a rule 
that parties shall break up at twelve, 
though the Broughtons protested, saying 
that was the time city parties began.” 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 203 


“Yes, it was a great stroke of yours, 
Stedman, and we are all grateful to you. 
But all this nonsense of carriages, flowers, 
and extravagant clothes has come upon us 
since the Broughtons settled down here. 
By the way, I see Belinda Broughton 
thinks Edgar the best thing going.” 

“He accompanies her a good deal. She 
seems a charming girl.” 

“Ye-s, and I have no doubt she tries 
to live up to her ideals. But they are not 
so high as Edgar’s.” 

“On the other hand, Doctor, her manners 
are better, and she gives him a chance to 
polish up.” 

“Edgar does not need polishing. What 
a comfort he must be to you.” 

“So much so that I wonder how men of 
fifty without children have anything to 
live for.” 


204 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 


“Still more unhappy are those who have 
children who disgrace them.” 

“It makes me shudder to think of it. 
Thank heaven, I have never even contem- 
plated it.” 

“And he is old enough now to have his 
character formed.” 

“Yes, I think the danger period is passed. 
My worries are over, and I have only to 
enjoy the development of my son’s career.” 

Ill 

It was the Friday evening of June exam- 
ination week, and after Dr. Goodfellow was 
gone a regents inspector called on Mr. 
Stedman. “Were you careful about your 
papers this week?” he asked. 

“Why, certainly,” replied Mr. Stedman; 
“I am always careful about them.” 

“The box was not opened till Monday 
morning?” 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 205 


“Certainly not,” and Mr. Stedman’s 
voice showed some offence. 

“The box had been untouched?” 

“Certainly.” 

“And had not been out of your charge?” 

“I had kept it in my own house, under 
lock and key.” 

“Mr. Stedman, for the last three exami- 
nations a paper in arithmetic has been sent 
in advance to New York city. Our inves- 
tigations threw suspicion on this school. 
For this examination we sent to you and 
to no one else a set of questions in arithme- 
tic different from that given in the regular 
examination. One of these papers was 
sent to a person in New York whom we 
were watching. He took the letter from 
the post-office, and we took it from him 
and opened it.” 


206 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

“In whose handwriting was the envel- 
ope ?” 

“That method of detection had been 
provided against: a typewritten address 
was pasted upon the outside.” 

“Then it will be difficult to discover 
the sender.” 

“Not so very difficult. Here is the 
envelope. As I hold it up to the light you 
see the watermark, ‘Nonpareil Mills’. We 
get letters at Albany from more than a 
thousand schools, and from only one of 
them have we had paper or envelopes 
with this watermark.” 

“And that is Beachcrest?” 

“Yes.” 

“I see that the envelope is like those on 
my writing table. An old pupil who is 
superintendent of a paper mill in Wiscon- 
sin sent me a big supply of stationery from 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 207 


his mill years ago, that has not yet given 
out. Whoever sent that paper to New 
York must have sent it in one of my en- 
velopes.” 

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” 

“That ought to make it easier to dis- 
cover who it is. I don’t use this paper at 
the school ; we have printed stationery 
there. The thief must have taken his 
envelope from this house.” 

“So it seemed to us. But that would 
be easy since he had already taken the 
arithmetic paper from this house.” 

“That is true. How discouraging it is 
that any one should have wanted to do 
this. What was his object?” 

“For each of the three papers hitherto 
sent he had received fifty dollars, and he 
was expecting to get fifty dollars for this.” 


208 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

“Who would pay so much just for a 
regents paper?” 

“Lots of people: the regents examina- 
tions are the key to the professions.” 

“It makes it the more despicable that 
the thief was paid for it. Have you any 
clue, beyond the envelope?” 

“Isn’t the envelope a sufficient clue?” 

“I don’t see how it helps, for I can’t 
think of any one who could have got into 
the house to take either the question paper 
or the envelope. It is a serious matter.” 

“All of that: it is a state-prison offence.” 

“The thief deserves it and I hope he 
will get it. How can I help you discover 
him?” 

“There is only one person who lives in 
this house, who had charge of the papers, 
and who had these envelopes at hand.” 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 209 


“You surely don’t mean that I am sus- 
pected?” 

“Rather more than suspected, Mr. 
Stedman.” 

“Mr. Clearwater, I have been principal 
of this school for twenty years, nearly half 
my life. If you can find a man, woman, 
or child in Beachcrest who believes it pos- 
sible I could do such a thing, I am ready 
to be arrested if only to get away from 
here.” 

“Reputation is one thing: that can be 
measured. Character is quite another, 
and revelations are often surprising. The 
evidence against you seems complete. 
Did any one else have access to these re- 
gents papers?” 

“Why — ”. Mr. Stedman was about to 
say that his son was to him like a second 
pair of hands and assisted him in regents 


210 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

examinations as in everything else, but 
he cut himself short. There was going 
to be something unpleasant about this 
affair: very likely it would get into the 
newspapers. It would be better that 
Edgar’s name should not be mentioned. 
So he changed his answer to “No”. 

“I will meet you at your office at half- 
past eight tomorrow,” said Mr. Clear- 
water. And as he walked down the steps 
he said to himself, “That man is guilty.” 
IV 

It amused Mr. Stedman that the in- 
spector should suspect him. “Mr. Clear- 
water is old enough to know that character 
is more than circumstance,” he reflected, 
“too old to display his platitudinous dis- 
crimination between character and reputa- 
tion. I wonder how so fresh a man gets ap- 
pointment. He will be well laughed at for 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 211 


this. I have my faults, plenty of them, 
but they do not lie in that direction.” 

That was true. His father had a sin- 
gular disinclination for any kind of book- 
keeping or memoranda, even for checks. 
He used to carry money in his pocket and 
pay bills from it, disdaining a receipt. 
Several times he was forced to pay a bill 
a second time, once for a considerable 
amount just about when the boy was be- 
ginning to have money of his own. He at 
once directed the son to keep an expense 
account and insisted that every night be- 
fore he went to bed the cash book should 
be shown, with the money to balance it. 
The habit thus formed Mr. Stedman had 
continued. To this day he never slept 
till every item of the day’s expense, even 
to a postage stamp, was shown in the 
credit column. If he handled the money 


212 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

of others, even temporarily, he opened a 
separate account for it at the bank, and 
when he reported he always showed a cer- 
tified check for the balance. The people 
of Beachcrest at first thought him fussy, 
but learned to appreciate the advantages 
of transparent transactions, and imitated 
him. 

“So he thinks a hundred and fifty dol- 
lars could get into my cash account sur- 
reptitiously,” Mr. Stedman laughed. “A 
five-cent piece would have kept me awake 
all night if I could not have told where it 
came from.” But who did take the re- 
gents paper? It was really puzzling. 
The box was locked, the key was kept in 
his trousers pocket. The theft must have 
been at night, when his trousers were hang- 
ing over the back of a chair. “To be sure, 
I am a sound sleeper,” he said to himself, 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 213 


“but Edgar in the adjoining room is 
awakened at the slightest sound. How 
could anybody have got in without dis- 
turbing him?” 

He wanted to talk it over with Edgar, 
but that evening his son had gone to a 
party and would not be home till after 
midnight. 

V 

It was true, as Mr. Goodfellow had said, 
these parties had grown to be extravagant. 
Tonight, for instance, Edgar would pay 
three dollars for a carriage and two dollars 
for flowers; probably he would not be 
satisfied without a fresh pair of white 
gloves at two dollars. There went seven 
dollars, two weeks allowance, and there 
were a dozen parties during the year. Mr. 
Stedman began to calculate and took up 
a pad and pencil. 


214 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

“Evening suit, $60,” he wrote. He 
himself had never had an evening suit in 
his life; even at commencement he had 
broken precedent by speaking in an ordi- 
nary black coa£, not being able to buy a 
swallow-tail or willing, like some of the 
boys, to rent one. But Edgar had argued, 
“I have my growth, the style never changes, 
I shall have to have one in college, and I 
might as well buy it now. Besides, I have 
the money and can afford it.” That 
seemed conclusive, but it took sixty dollars. 

“Six dress shirts, $24.” That seemed a 
good deal, but Edgar had said, “Of course 
a dress shirt can be worn but once without 
laundrying, and parties may come close 
together. Besides, one might spoil his 
shirt-front just as he was ready to start. 
Linen one must have, anyway, and it will 
last as long as I live.” So the shirts were 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 215 


ordered, but twenty-four dollars seemed 
a good deal. 

Then there were other items. “Pumps, 
$6.” Those were probably necessary. 
“Crush hat, $8.” The father had rebelled 
at that, but Edgar said it was so like a 
Reub to wear a Derby with a dress suit, 
and a crush hat once bought was for all 
time. Then there were white gloves, not 
less than a dozen pairs in two years, $24. 
Carriage not less than twenty times, $60. 
Flowers, $40. As the column lengthened 
Mr. Stedman’s face grew pale. “In two 
years he has spent on parties alone more 
than two hundred dollars,” he figured, 
“while I have allowed him for everything 
only $364. Before these two years his 
allowance barely paid his expenses, and 
these other expenses have been much more 


216 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

these two years than before. Where have 
the two hundred dollars come from?” 

Automatically his pencil wrote the fig- 
ures “50x4 = 200”, just the sum the man 
who sold the regents questions would have 
got for the four examinations had not the 
theft this last time been prevented. 

It would have been easy enough. Edgar 
slept in an adjoining room with the door 
open between, he knew his father would 
not be disturbed, he opened the envelopes 
to help distribute the regents papers, and 
he could see to it that no one discovered 
that the arithmetic envelope had been 
tampered with. Yes, he could have done 
it had he wanted to, but how preposterous 
that he should even be tempted. What a 
rest it was to look into his eyes. 

Not Katrine in her mirror blue 
Gave back the shaggy banks more true. 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 217 


No, it was unthinkable. But he would 
ask him. Even if he had done it, Mr. Sted- 
man believed the boy would confess it if 
questioned. On the whole he was glad 
Edgar was not here now. It would be best 
to think over what should be done if the 
impossible proved true, that Edgar was 
the culprit. 

VI 

Now that he consented to look at that 
side he must admit that his son had not 
been so close to him since Belinda Brough- 
ton had come into his life. He knew the 
boy believed himself in love with her, but 
he had not tried to interfere, partly be- 
cause such interference usually only fanned 
the flame, and partly because such calf- 
love usually amounted to little. He had 
contented himself with talking much to 
Edgar of his mother, a superb woman, 


218 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

emphasizing the points of breeding and 
character in which she surpassed and 
Belinda was lacking. 

It had flattered Edgar that he satisfied 
Belinda’s aristocratic notions, that she 
showed a preference for his company, that 
she looked to him as leader of the school 
and of the village. He spent much time 
with her, walking with her home from 
school, going off on Saturday excursions, 
listening Sunday afternoons to her singing, 
calling on her night after night. It had 
interfered with his studies and had largely 
cut off the boy’s companionship with his 
father except at meals. Mr. Stedman had 
not allowed himself to reflect much about 
it, but tonight the fact came home to him 
that he was no longer his boy’s chosen 
comrade. 

Again the question came, suppose Ed- 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 219 


gar did confess. The more the father re- 
flected the more possible it seemed. Com- 
panionship with Belinda was expensive. 
She was a soda-water girl and she always 
took the highest-priced sundae. She liked 
to go riding, to the theatre when plays 
came, on all sorts of excursions. There 
must have been a constant drain on Edgar’s 
purse, which he did not want to ask his 
father to make good. To get fifty dollars 
for abstracting a single regents paper 
would seem like finding money. He tried 
to put himself in the boy’s place, to justify 
the boy, to make it seem a venial trans- 
gression. 

It was sickening. The one thing he had 
felt sure of was that his son was honest 
above temptation. That he could trifle 
thus with the fundamental principles of 
honor seemed loathsome. Any way he 


220 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

would never believe it till Edgar himself 
told him so. 

VII 

But if it was so. Then the one inevi- 
table conclusion was that the boy’s guilt 
must never be suspected. His son, his 
Angelica’s son, should never be convicted 
of a misdemeanor and sentenced to prison. 
If Edgar confessed, the father would as- 
sume the crime and take the punishment. 
“The inspector already believes me guil- 
ty,” he mused. “It would be easy to con- 
fess and divert attention from Edgar.” 
It was hard to be disgraced, to give up the 
work he loved, to wear the stripes of a 
prisoner. But he was forty-five years old, 
the rest of his life would not have amounted 
to much any way, and his boy should have 
his career unchecked. 

Perhaps the regents would be satisfied 


THE STOLEN REGENTS FAPER 221 


if he resigned his principalship and retired 
from teaching. If they insisted on his 
conviction, perhaps they would permit a 
quiet trial in some distant county. Or if 
it must all come out and the shadow of 
his father’s disgrace fall on the boy, he 
would impress it upon Edgar that for this 
very reason he must be more than upright, 
that there might be no fear he would follow 
in his father’s footsteps. 

VIII 

This line of thought had led him so far 
th^t he was surprised to observe how far 
the probability of his son’s guilt had grown 
upon him. He resented it and could hard- 
ly account for it. When he heard Edgar 
come in he was almost tempted to slink 
to bed, so much did he dread the interview. 

The boy would have retired without the 
little chat which till within a few months 


222 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

had naturally followed any evening the 
one had spent without the other, but his 
father detained him. “How was the 
party?” he asked. 

“The worst ever,” replied the son mood- 
ily. 

“Which means that you quarreled with 
Belinda?” suggested Mr. Stedman, with an 
attempt at jocularity. 

“Yes, and it was all my fault,” the boy 
replied. 

“Then it will be easily mended,” said 
the father ; and thinking it would be better 
before discussing it farther to wait till 
his son was less ruffled, he went on to the 
more important subject. 

“Edgar, what do you think?” he said. 
“A regents inspector called here tonight 
and said the arithmetic papers sent here 
for this examination were especially printed 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 223 


for us and not the same given to the rest 
of the schools.” 

“What a mean trick to play on us,” 
exclaimed the boy angrily. “That ac- 
counts for it then.” 

“For what, my son?” 

“Why should they send special papers 
to us?” asked the boy evasively. 

“He said it was done because for the last 
three examinations an arithmetic paper 
had been sent in advance to New York 
from here.” 

“That is true. I sent it each time, and 
I got fifty dollars for it each time. I 
was promised fifty dollars for it this time, 
and I had banked on having the money. 
It throws me all out not to get it. I had 
promised Belinda something I could have 
got if the money had come. No wonder 
she quarrelled with me.” 


224 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 


IX 

If the solid earth had suddenly opened 
and engulfed him, Mr. Stedman could not 
have been more astounded. He had sup- 
posed himself steeled to his son’s con- 
fession, but when it came he recognized 
how dreamy had been his imagining of * , . 
the reality took out of life all that was 
worth living for. That his son should 
have done it, and done it repeatedly, and 
for a sordid motive, and even when he was 
detected consider it merely an incident 
of his quarrel with a silly girl, was too 
much to grasp. He must have more time 
to reflect and plan. “We will not discuss 
it tonight, Edgar,” he said. “Tomorrow 
morning we shall both be rested and we 
can consider what must be done.” 

Even to himself his voice sounded faint 
and feeble, like an echo from a distance, 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 225 


and as he rose from his chair his hands 
groped like those of an old man. 

Edgar turned his mind enough from his 
quarrel with Belinda to observe something 
of this, and he asked, not unkindly, “Was 
it really so bad a thing to cheat the ex- 
aminers a little?” 

“Incidentally it is a state-prison offence,” 
replied the father. Both of them recog- 
nized that in their eighteen years of inter- 
course this was the first sarcasm that had 
been spoken, but these were the final 
words that night. 

X 

Neither slept much, but the son did not 
come into his father’s room before break- 
fast. When they were seated the father 
remarked, “Edgar, you said last night 
that you had depended on the fifty dollars 
from New York. Here is a check for that 


226 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

amount. I have not been as observant 
as I should have been of the rapidity with 
which the expenses of young people here 
have been increasing. Hereafter your al- 
lowance will be five dollars a week, if that 
will be enough.” 

“I will take the check, father,” the boy 
replied, “because I have contracted bills 
to this amount, but I will deduct it as fast 
as I can from my allowance, and that I 
can not let you increase : I know you cannot 
afford it. I am going to find a way to 
earn money, carrying newspapers, or agent 
for the Saturday Evening Post , or some- 
thing. You have been too kind, too gen- 
erous.” 

“No, my son, I have quite a little money 
saved. I see I have saved too closely. 
We will go on with the new arrangement 
for the present. Your school work gives 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 227 


you all the responsibility you ought to 
carry. As to the regents papers, I am to 
meet the inspector at my office at eight- 
thirty. I think I can fix it up so that 
nothing disagreeable will come to you, 
but you will be sure nothing like it hap- 
pens again, won’t you?” 

XI 

“Mr. Clearwater,” said Mr. Stedman 
to the inspector, “I have been thinking 
the matter over, and I have decided that 
it is best to confess that I am the guilty 
person.” 

‘‘You know of course that the punish- 
ment is severe,” replied the inspector, 
looking at him steadily. 

‘‘I had hoped that possibly if I would 
resign at once and go out of the teaching 
business, the regents might be contented 


228 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

with that punishment, perhaps might let 
the occasion be kept secret.” 

“That is not the purpose of the statute, 
Mr. Stedman. Our school system is based 
upon confidence in the honor of its teachers. 
The examination system is based on con- 
fidence in the honor of those who handle 
the questions. When a man is both a 
teacher and the man to whom the ques- 
tions of a school are entrusted, do you 
think allowing him to resign would be 
sufficient puuishment, if he betrays his 
trust and sells the secrets of the state for 
fraudulent use?” 

“I suppose not,” replied the principal 
humbly. “But if I make full confession 
will there be need of a trial?” 

“I do not see how it can be avoided.” 

“And it must be public?” 

“All trials are public, or should be.” 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 229 


“Must it be here? Could it not be 
held in Albany or in New York, and kept 
out of the newspapers? I am willing to 
undergo whatever punishment is demanded 
but I wish the publicity of it might be 
spared my son.” 

“You are ready to make written con- 
fession, I suppose?” 

“0 yes.” 

“Giving all the details of how you con- 
tracted to send the papers and how they 
were delivered and the money paid?” 

Mr. Stedman hesitated. “I should hard- 
ly like to do that unless it is absolutely 
necessary.” 

“Could you do it if required?” 

“I could tell all I know about it if I am 
compelled to.” 

“But that does not include these facts. 
Mr. Stedman, when I called on you last 


230 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

night, all I knew about you was that you 
had been principal here twenty years. 
When I went away from your house I 
thought you the guilty person. But I 
called on a number of people here : on your 
rector, on two members of your board, 
on three of your teachers. Incidentally 
I ran across three of your pupils. I said 
nothing of the regents paper, of course, 
but I inquired about you. You could not 
pack a jury in this town that would convict 
you if you swore you did it. I myself on 
twelve hours acquaintance and against 
any testimony would take oath that you 
never did it. So when you offer to confess 
you are shielding somebody. There is 
only one person for whom you could make 
such a sacrifice. Your son sent those 
papers to New York.” 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 231 


XII 

At this moment the door was thrown 
open and Edgar came rushing in. “Are 
you the inspector?” he asked Mr. Clear- 
water. 

“I am.” 

“I am Mr. Stedman’s son. My father 
is trying to shield me. I don’t know how 
but I don’t want to be shielded. I want 
you to know that I stole the four papers 
and sold them. I don’t know why the 
guilt of it did not impress me. An agent 
who was hanging around here suggested 
it as easy money and it looked so. It 
seemed a sort of joke on the regents to 
outwit them in spite of all their precau- 
tions. Some way I did not realize it till 
I saw my father’s face this morning. Then 
I knew it was not a joke or a sharp trick, 
but just dirty knavery. Don’t blame my 


232 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

father. By precept and by example he 
has taught me to despise a lie. I have 
simply gone tangent from him and his 
teaching. Even last night when I knew 
how disturbed he was I was more troubled 
over a tiff I had with an exacting girl 
than over the sorrow I had caused the best 
father a fellow ever had. You can’t begin 
to punish me as severely as I deserve.” 

‘‘Your father has just offered to confess 
that he sent the papers and got the money.” 

‘‘My father!” The boy’s face showed 
his indignation and his pride. ‘‘My father 
do a dishonest thing! You couldn’t make 
a man, woman, or child in Beachcrest 
believe it. My father!” 

‘‘That is true, my boy. Nobody will 
believe it even when he swears to it. Pret- 
ty good reputation to have, isn’t it ? Don’t 
you hope you may have it at his age?” 


THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 233 


“I have disgraced him,” the son said 
brokenly, “and he would have taken the 
guilt on himself. O father! father!” 

“My boy,” said the inspector kindly, 
“a sin confessed is half redressed. I have 
no authority except to report the facts at 
Albany, but if my opinion is asked I shall 
say that in my judgment the regents can 
afford to forgive you, not for your sake 
but for your father’s, whose long service 
and spotless character deserve recognition. 
You are blessed beyond what you know 
in having such a father, and if I mistake 
not you will hereafter make him blessed in 
his son. Your crime, and crime it is, de- 
serves severe punishment. I am satisfied 
that such punishment you already feel. 
Usually punishment should also warn 
others, for which purpose it must be public. 
I shall hope that the commissioner of edu- 


234 THE STOLEN REGENTS PAPER 

cation, who has sons of his own, will in 
this case be willing to waive publicity out 
of sympathy and regard for your father.” 

And it was so. It is generally supposed 
that the secret of the stolen regents paper 
was never detected. We have heard it 
remarked that matters were more keenly 
looked after in Mr. De Groat’s time. 























